Henrietta II Adventures

It's been one hell of a year at sea! We arrived in Aruba in June of 2011, got jobs and I am almost finished with my Masters degree that I started in March of 2011. It's been great here, we've had a great time but we decided to leave in June of 2012 and move on to Florida (which was the original plan). We plan on heading to either the Dominican Republic straight from Aruba then possibly to Turks and Caicos, Bahamas then to South Florida. Happy New Year to everyone, may next year bring you happiness and may you follow your dreams.....we certainly are.

I registered our arrival in the canal zone with the canal authorities in advance. As one would assume, the canal is a terrorist target, so there is some post 9/11 screening that must occur. But I read every guide, every blog, EVERYTHING I could about the process. I hailed Balboa (Panama City) port control on VHF 12 (not VHF 16, the normal hailing channel) on arrival, requested permission to cross the canal shipping lane to approach the marina, and got approval. We made it to Panama City. From what all the guidebooks/blogs had said, it would only be four days to get our clearance to transit. Once at the marina, I started what I thought was the canal transit process. I went to the port captain’s office, and, after much confusion, was told I needed to visit customs, immigration, and quarantine. Everyone wanted a cut. But quarantine wins for the most egregious abuse of power. Apparently, the port captain’s office and quarantine have a close relationship at said marina. After

Captain’s Blog #4 We are not cruisers. I had my suspicions about this, and they were confirmed at the Cruiser’s Rally to El Salvador. Cruisers spend months at a time at one anchorage. They are older, retired, experienced in the arts of whining and fear-mongering. We are not cruisers. We are transiters. Cruiser’s aren’t bad, nor was the rally, but we certainly didn’t fit in. I’m not a retired engineer. Sam and I still enjoy talking to each other. We watched a couple get in a fight over converting amps to volts. Seriously. Sam and I only fight about important things – like NCAA basketball. The marina in El Salvador was out in the middle of nowhere, making provisioning difficult. However, there was hourly bus service to San Salvador, the capital. The bus ride itself was worth the trip, and the city . . . I can’t really describe it. Everything from fake Ray Bans to child pornography being sold in stalls, set against the backdrop of the presidential palace and cathedral. Heavily a

Hopefully we will have a blog up soon that will describe in more detail about the last part of our journey to Aruba. Greg is working on it,but in the mean time I'd thought I'd share some favorite things about the journey. In no particular order..... 1. Seeing all the wildlife, especially the dolphins that would great me in the mornings 2. Jumping off the stern of Henrietta II for the first time in Zihautanejo 3. Meat plate off the food cart in Santa Marta, Colombia 4. The fantastic dinner and salsa show in Panama City 5. Arriving in Aruba! 6. Night watches, gazing at the stars 7. "Sampling" the beer in all the different countries 8. Watching Monty and Mazie go nuts when dolphins came up to the boat 9. Cooking at sea, pork and mango & black bean salsa, eggs with prosciutto and polenta, Jeff's pad-thai and his tarragon and cheese omelets 10. Bus ride into San Salvador 11. Date night out with Greg in El Salvador where we almost adopted a small boy at the circus 1

THE STORY OF THE HENRIETTAS (note – if you aren’t a family friend, or if you prefer Hemingway-style writing to Melville, you can skip this entry. It only discusses the reasons for the name of the boat, as well as how the voyage came to be a reality. It’s long-winded.) “Why Henrietta?” I was asked this by Miguel, the person in charge of the marina in Nicaragua. In fact, he asked it twice, when we checked in and checked out. Apparently Immigration and Customs had the same question, as he was interpreting for both on both occasions. My dad and I always had an agreement. When he died, he would be reincarnated as a basset hound, and I would find said basset hound and raise it. Yes, you read that correctly. There was one condition on my part though – I wasn’t willing to raise a male basset (they are the most stubborn dogs on earth, not unlike dad, but . . .), so dad would have to be reincarnated as a female basset. Not Hank, Henrietta. But dad didn’t die at the most opportune of

Hola, We arrived in Panama City after a 50 hour passage from Costa Rica. Very hot, windless, flat seas until we reached the rightly named Punta Mala (bad point) to enter the Gulf of Panama. Moderate wind, but sharp, boat stopping, wet chop and strange currents for about 6 hrs. Tiring. Things calmed down at daybreak and in the early afternoon of May 2nd we arrived at Flamingo Marina in Panama City. The last couple of days have been spent waiting for various officials to do their thing and spending the evenings with a friend of Greg's--Rebecca--who is a native Panamanian that speaks excellent English. She gave us a tour of the huge, cosmopolitan downtown and then we had drinks in the old colonial square until late. Last night we had dinner at Rebecca's high-rise apartment with a view of Panama Bay. The pasta de carbon she made was excellent and her brother Eric, and her dog "Paris" we're also great company. Rebecca is beautiful, ambitious, fun

Hola, We motored 30 hrs. down the Nicaraguan coast the last 6 hrs into a small Papagallo (like a Santa Ana offshore wind) with 20 knot winds on the nose and steep, closely spaced 4 ft chop. Henrietta II was covered in salt spray (wet) and we were relieved to enter Bahia Santa Elena in Santa Rosa National Park just inside the northern Costa Rican border. The bay is remote, undeveloped and peaceful. We stayed for 2 days of swimming and a bit of walking. Saw parrots and a sloth. A very peaceful place. Everywhere we have been so far we've visited at the end of the "dry" season climate wise. Even the jungle has been mostly brown. Until now. We motored 70 hrs about 30 miles off the coast of Costa Rica in flat, hot, still, windless seas (dry) to Golfito in southern Costa Rica near the border with Panama. My God--what a difference. Lush green jungle. Supposed to be one of the rainiest places on earth (wiki says 400-500 cm of annual rain). Pretty coo

We arrived in Costa Rica on April 22 nd after a 23 hour leg from Nicaragua and set anchor in Bahĩa Santa Elena which is described as “a pristine, nearly land-locked cove in northern Costa Rica’s Santa Elena National Park”. Basically you can only access it by boat. When we anchored we noticed another Kadey Krogen in the bay (there were only 2 boats) and realized we had caught up to Hobo (same exact boat as ours with a couple and their dog who looked like combo of both our dogs). Every marina we have been at people had been perplexed because they thought we were Hobo so we were anxious to meet them and talk Krogens. The next day we landed the dingy on the beach so the dogs could swim and that they did, Monty jumped into 20 feet of water and Mazie followed (this is a dog who as of March barely would get her paws wet but big brother has helped her get over her fears). We saw that the Hobo crew was making it over to the beach with their dog and thought we should hold onto ours until t

After our near miss of capsizing on the way into Bahia Del Sol, El Salvador we decided to spend 4 days relaxing at the pool and resting the crew. We signed up for the Rally to El Salvador which got us nice discounts at the marina and resort. The grounds were beautiful as you can see in the first picture and Bill & Gene (organizers of the rally) were super helpful and friendly. One night Greg and I ventured down the road to see what kind of shennanigins we could find. We found a nice quaint little restaurant where we drank cold beers and carne, rice and beans. A little boy sat across from us and Greg and he quickly became friends playing telephone and giggling (we almost adopted him). On our way back to the marina, Greg and I heard some really loud music coming from a tent so we bought 2 $1 tickets and entered. What we didn't realize was that it was a circus and we were the only spectators, oh maybe that's because we were an hour early. My Spanish isn't that great but I

Captain’s Blog #3 I’ve always had a healthy fear/respect for math. Much like high-voltage wiring, I know it is VERY important, but that I don’t want to touch it, and the less I have to do with it, the less likely I am to be electrocuted. But the importance of math has become so clear that I’m actually wishing I had physics in high school (to my high school students – yes, I am that old that physics was not a requirement). The math I need to do is not complicated. It is not calculus, not pre-calculus, not even logs & trig – it’s not even algebra II. But that nightmare SAT question, “When train A leaves station A going X miles per hour, and train B leaves station B going Y miles per hour . . . “ the answer isn’t “Y do I care?” anymore. It matters. Because showing up at a marina that has a shallow draft at 3 AM . .. it doesn’t work. It means your boat (in my case, your home) is on the rocks. And not in the drink sense. In the call Lloyds of London sense. Converting g