The new adventure has begun! We left “Now or Never!” on a mooring ball at Coconut Grove Sailing Club. We met our friend Al at the airport. He had quite a long layover so, of course, we had to take him to “El Atlacatl” in Little Havana to sample the Mariscada. Then we all boarded a plane and headed to Sint Maarten where we provisioned “Second Wind.” Soon, we were on our way to Puerto Rico. The sailing was great! (see below for “what she said”) We turned off the engine as soon as we left the lagoon. The wind was from the NE at 12-15 knots and we were headed straight West. We set the sails and hardly touched them for the next 20 hours—woo-hoo! 6 knots! 7 knots! Even 8 knots! We were cooking in 6 foot seas (what she said below) We set the whisker pole to sail wing and wing as we came to the southern shore of Puerto Rico. By now, we had a following sea with 8 foot waves and an occasional 10 footer. There is nothing quite like looking aft to see a wall of water towering over the transom.
Our arrival at Ponce provided the only real excitement of the 30 hour trip. Since the jib was poled out certain precautions needed to be observed when furling the sail. Even so, the sail got pinched in the jaws of the whisker pole and we had a problem getting the sail rolled up. We started the engine and discovered that we had no steering gear. Yikes! We dug out the emergency tiller and with some difficulty, we were able to pilot the boat into the anchorage where we dropped the hook and rewarded ourselves with a ‘ti punch (basically rum, lime wedge and a bit of sugar).
“What she said” Great sailing my eye! Sure 6, 7, 8 knots. That didn’t change the fact that the boat was bobbing up and down on every 6 foot wave that passed! I spent the next 24 hours curled up in a fetal position in the V-berth.

We’re wrapping up our séjour in the Grove today. The sun is shining brightly and music is drifting across the mooring field from the park adjacent to the Sailing Club. The 48th annual Coconut Grove Arts Festival is taking place this weekend. It is estimated that 150,000 people attend this event to look at and buy art work from over 300 artists from all over the world. I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many people in one place! The art work, from painting to sculpture to jewelry and tapestry, is truly spectacular and truly expensive. The food vendors represent the usual hodgepodge of gyros, hotdogs and hamburgers with a bit of Latin food tossed in--pinchos, chicharrones and empanadas, all equally expensive.

We ate at a Cuban restaurant this week, La Carreta. Claudia ordered a sampler pletter that had enough food to satisfy our appetites for 2 days. In fact, we brought home the leftovers for lunch the following day. Peter nearly always orders picadillo at Cuban restaurants. It’s a very popular dish which consists of seasoned ground beef. His Cuban friend Carlos taught him how to make it several years ago. It’s been a favorite in our household for years. The version served at La Carreta was almost as good as Carlos’ version.

We went to the Barnacle State Park, within walking distance of the Sailing Club. It is the site of the oldest residence in Miami Dade County still standing on its original foundations. It’s a beautiful home that was well thought out by the boat builder who designed it. It’s located on five acres of Florida Hammock right downtown in the Grove. It’s amazing how quiet and peaceful it is there just a few hundred feet from traffic and city noises.

Tomorrow begins a new adventure. We’ll keep you posted.

Of Valentines and Regattas

Another weekend has come and gone and likewise another Valentine’s Day. The weekend brought yet another regatta to Coconut Grove. This time it was a Melges regatta. This was the second of three Melges regattas in the Miami Winter Melges series. Approximately 60 teams gathered to compete in the Melges 20 and 24 divisions. The Melges is a state of the art racing dinghy. I told a friend about the event and he said that racing dinghies provided a relatively inexpensive way to enjoy sailing. HaHa! The Melges 20 comes with a price tag of $47,000 and the 24 $67,000. That is, of course before spending thousands on new Mylar/Kevlar sails and all the other high tech upgrades these folks put in their boats.

Valentine’s Day was special (tongue in cheek humor!). Running out of clothes--time to do laundry. So Claudia heads for the laundry room at Dinner Key Marina. Since we were also running out of rum, certainly a more serious problem than clothes, Peter heads off to the liquor store. After such exertions, we didn’t feel like cooking on the boat so we had lunch at Scotty’s Landing. This visit was not equal to our last. Of course, maybe Valentine’s Day is not equal to Peter’s birthday. All was not bad on the culinary front. We decided to try to duplicate the Tartare de Saumon that was so good at the Bouchon du Grove. Our attempt was aided by logging onto a couple of French cooking sites where we watched instructional video clips. The result is that we have added another recipe to our repertoire.

The other day, a French couple arrived in the mooring field. The Sailing Club staff had a bit of trouble communicating with them. Enter Peter, the angel of mercy. A bit of translation service and the French boat was tied to a mooring ball. Actually, the French couple was probably able to speak adequate English. They’ve made it all the way down here from New York, partly on the ICW. That’s a feat that would be virtually impossible without a working knowledge of English.

We’re still hanging out in Coconut Grove. The weather has been fabulous and the town is great. Some friends of ours went to the Bahamas with the recent weather window. We’re going to stick around here for a bit, another adventure looms. Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy the weather and the town. We had a terrific meal at a local restaurant, le Bouchon du Grove. Peter had Moules Marinières and Claudia a Tartare de Saumon. Moules is one of our favorite dishes (a tradition on Xmas Eve). The Bouchon did a great job, serving up a full kilo of delicious mussels steamed in a white wine broth. The Tartare of Salmon came swimming in a delicate cream seasoned with lime zest and basil oil.

Our walks around town have yielded yet more additions to Peter’s collection of doors and windows from around the world. (pictures, you understand, not the actual ‘things’ ;) One of them looked as if it could have been from Timbuktu. I don’t know what is so fascinating about doors and windows but Peter has pictures of them from all over. Maybe he’ll do a collage some day.

And then there is the varnishing. Peter spent a lot of time last winter sanding and varnishing the toe rail. The elements have begun to take their toll. The plans were to do something about it in some nice quiet, exotic cove. Well, Coconut Grove is not quiet, some may consider it exotic, but it is nice. So, progress has been made to rescue the teak from the ravages of weather. Claudia, the slug, has tried to clean the starboard scoop with the magical “Mr Clean” sponges and after working quite a while, decided that this one would not come as clean as the port one. She is, however, keeping the saloon relatively tidy and the galley spotless!

Went out for lunch for Peter’s birthday. A really local place next to the exorbitantly priced “Chart House.” We had a great view of the water and the boats anchored there. We had a shrimp ceviche that was only so so . And a conch salad that could NOT compare to “Friendly Joe’s “ on Bimini –(or even Peter’s ceviche) then we shared a burger which was also so so. Oh, well we stopped at the “fresh market” and bought some salmon and smoked salmon to try to replicate my tartare, as well as two lovely lamb chops to go with the rest of the fresh spinach that we have. *sigh* LIFE IS GOOD. Even for old codgers!!!!!