F.A.D.

Way out in the middle of the ocean St Croix's Fish & Wildlife Dept. maintains Fish Attracting Devices to give fishermen a place to fish other than the reefs. Basically they're just a big mooring buoys with a chain that goes down 2 or 3 thousand feet. They give small pelagic fish a reference point to swim around and small fish attract big fish which attract bigger fish which ultimately leads to mahi-mahi and tuna on my plate.

Today it was my job to jump into the thousands of feet deep water and install new sacrificial zincs onto one of the chains so that it doesn't corrode (only down to about 110ft).

The work itself only took about a half hour, but the 19 mile trip out and back took about 4 hours overall. Good thing it was a nice day for a boat ride.

I managed to drop only one allen wrench.

Orion's Vacation

Lisa's Fake Job

Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory

These People Killed 88 Lionfish This Morning

Zephyr Is Back

from Venezuela

Holiday Jump Up

Turkey And Coconut Drinks

Turned into 6 turkeys and a 9 hour feast with a revolving cast of characters

at a closed restaurant.

Paw Pile

Good Good Eat

Apparently I think they're better than the girl on the package does.

Double Rainbow

Begging

I think this visitor to our Sunday brunch was hoping for leftovers.

Lunchtime View

Miss Lizzy Goes West

Tree Wisdom

Island Engineering

Palm Trees And Deer

it just doesn't seem right to me

Infection Resolved

just a nasty blister to deal with now.

Wahoo!

This is the prize-winning 50lbs wahoo from this weekend's tournament.

This is the wahoo tartare that showed up at our table about 15 minutes later.

Thanks Keith!

Recovery

St Thomas -> St Croix

The well-heeled Miss Lizzy got us from St Thomas to St Croix perfectly on one close-hauled tack.

Well, we had to come about once for about 20 minutes to get into Salt River Bay, but otherwise it was a perfect day to be out on the water.

124 Nautical Miles in 3 days

Culebra -> St Thomas

Day 2 started with trouble. We broke a mainsheet block in some high winds and had to limp back to Culebra. We got underway again around 1 and were making good time until we neared Sail Rock out in the Virgin Passage. The current was flowing north as fast as we could manage after the wind had died down to almost nothing. We were getting swept around to the north side of St Thomas. When we finally neared Savana Island, the current let up and we got back around to the south and crawled in to Linbergh Bay, St. Thomas for the night feeling kind of beat up.

San Juan -> Culebra

We sailed past El Morro this morning on the way out of San Juan Harbor.

The wind and waves never really cut us a break on our first day out. The only wind we got was the outflow from all the storms passing all around. We didn't really even see the sun until it ducked beneath the clouds at sunset.

Then a steady breeze kicked up and helped us into a gorgeous little bay at the southern tip of Culebra.

No Rest

After a night at home I'm flying over Vieques

to San Juan, Puerto Rico

to help Matt sail his boat back to St Croix.

Time To Furl The Courtesy Flag

and head home to St Croix (via a quick stop on St John).

My Current Favorite Piece Of The Earth

The Baths on Virgin Gorda.

Volcanic activity and erosion have left piles of giant granite boulders on the southern tip of Virgin Gorda. Next to the palm tree is a small opening into one of the piles.

Inside is a playground of rock climbing and exploring all the nooks and pathways created by the tumbled granite.

Sometimes you're walking on soft sand

others wading through water.

What pictures can't really give though, is a sense of scale.

These things are massive!

Eventually you come out from under the rocks onto another beach.

Then its time to get in and swim back to the boat while checking out the rest of the boulders that are underwater!

Not A Bad View To Wake Up To

Night Passage

With about 2 hours of notice I found myself crewing a 4 day sailing charter to the British Virgin Islands.

A Member of the Chorus

Coqui

Former Stomping Grounds

We flew right over Grand Turk on our way back to St Croix. I got to spend some time there running boats and diving 4 years ago.

Welcome Wagon