Henrietta II Adventures

Well, hurricane season in Aruba somehow turned into a full-time position at the International School of Aruba for me and a part-time position and internship for Sam. We both accomplished our goals – letters of recommendation and experience. We made plans to head north to the DR, up through Turks & Caicos, and finally to Florida, where permits and the like are not issues. We assembled a crew consisting of three of my close Dutch friends for the first leg to the DR – the rest would be day trips that Sam and I could handle on our own. But while working at ISA, we got to know someone who accepted a position as head of school at an international school in Sint Maarten. And it just so happened that he needed a college counselor and “right-hand man” (or, in this case, woman). We were flown to Sint Maarten, toured the school, and signed contracts in a whirlwind of a week. Sint Maarten is the boating capital of the northern Caribbean. You can see St. Barts, Saba, and Anguilla on a ...

1 week tour? Try 1 month and then some. We flew Jeff out from San Diego on April 4th thinking we would leave Aruba a few days later and arrive in SXM in three days.  As you know things didn't work out so well. Anyway, we had some unpleasant seas coming from Bonaire. Also, about 24 hours into the voyage we discovered that one of our fuel filters was clogged (basically our engine was starting to fail). We had to make a decision. Turn of the engine at sea or turn back to Bonaire. After some slight whimpers (me), Jeff explained we could push forward. we all agreed. The weather had said 5 feet at 5 seconds. I think it was more like 10 feet at 1 second. Just a sloppy, slappy mess. Dogs and couches sliding all over the boat. Eventually, we had to make a decision to turn off the engine so Jeff could change the filter. We did a drill. I got all the life jackets, put them on the dogs and tried not to throw up in my mouth. We ended up waiting another day. Then it was time. It took ...

I have to say that being stranded in Bonaire is not bad. Not bad at all. We took H2 out for her third sea trial yesterday and she performed the way she should = happy crew. The past few days have been amazing. Swimming and drinking beers in Lac Bay, driving around the island checking out donkeys, goats and flamingos......this island is truly beautiful. Greg and I have decided that we'd like to come back and visit. This is not Colon. Last night we had dinner at a restaurant called Capriccio that was recommended to us by a fellow named Patrick. Jeff and I met Patrick while taking the dogs for a swim. While Jeff and I were swimming, Patrick approached us and offered us beers. Yes please. Great guy. Anyway, dinner was outstanding last night, great pizza and lots of laughs. Until the glee club from the Scientology cruise ship showed up. That was our exit cue. Tomorrow we plan to leave Bonaire and head north......maybe straight to Sint Maarten.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I am a horrible writer. We all know who the long winded author is in this family. With that said, I just wanted to give you an update on our most recent excursion. As most of you may know, we had a bit of a transmission problem leaving Aruba. With some adjustments we decided to press on and attempt to make it to Bonaire, a safer bet. We couldn’t go over 4.5 knots, otherwise we were afraid of blowing the transmission up. I’ll let Jeff or Greg explain all the details.  We arrived in Bonaire on April 13th. Friday the 13th. The anniversary……of the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Great.  All went well getting into the marina, piece of cake. We gathered everything we needed to check in, beers, passports, etc. and walked into downtown into customs.  On Saturday, April 14th, we went to Budget Marine (I know, how exciting!) and got some parts, walked around town, found a great Indonesian restaurant, got Jeff a much needed haircut, (he was sta...

After checking out of Aruba around 8:30 am on Monday, April 9th we started our 3 1/2 day trek to St. Maarten. We were about 3 miles outside of Aruba when Jeff noticed a strange noise and we all noticed a strange smell. Sure enough, the transmission was failing and then eventually we lost gears, meaning we couldn't move forward or backwards (well we could move slightly backwards but not good enough). Jeff mentioned he has seen this before and said sometimes the transmission comes back but we had to do something, so we called the Coast Guard/Port of Aruba to let them know the situation. We were like sitting ducks, couldn't go anywhere and the seas weren't being friendly. The Coast Guard said they could get a tow to us in 2 hours which meant a very uncomfortable situation for everyone. Furniture that wasn't strapped down was now in a different place and the dogs were clinging on to me in the pilot house. The dogs did much better than I did. After about an hour, Jeff was ...

Well we had a crew of 6 and now it's back to just the three of us. It's great to have Jeff back on board, we've been doing plenty of catching up. Greg is in the engine room now doing last minute checks, and we only have a few more things to do before we leave tomorrow morning. We hope to leave around daybreak and arrive in St. Maarten by Thursday. It should take about 76 hours at 7 knots. Looking forward to the new adventure and starting a new life in St. Maarten.