Log of Sand Dollar
2001 - 2008
Welcome aboard Sand Dollar, this is page was last updated on Saturday, March 21, 2008 - and as Geocities is closing, it will be relocated at the next update at this new address: http://sanddollar.t35.com. Most of the pictures have moved to Panoramio (see more below). We have also preserved these pages:
We're Cade and Lisa Johnson; set sail in mid-April 2001. Our travels
to-date are traced on the map. Of course travel webpages are inherently map-oriented, so we have moved our
photos and comments to Panoramio. If you select individual
photos you will see our brief comments and associated maps that show where we took them. For some of you
armchair explorers, it may be more fun to use the Google Earth browser
and download my .kml file: Once you download
this file, you can see our pictures from within Google Earth - so you can explore along with us! We think
Panoramio and Google Earth are a fun way to organize our travels across space and time: Let us know if you
don't like it though - we can change this page again if we get bad reviews!
This site is hosted free by Yahoo!™ which places a limit on our
storage memory as well as limiting total downloads - so this page may
not always be available. On the other hand, the Panoramio site is usually available, so maybe bookmark it
separately!
LOOKING AHEAD: We really put the brakes on last spring! We are working full-time in St. Thomas for a while - bought a commuter-dinghy, a Caribe 12' with a 15hp Yamaha, and an island beater Chevy S-10 pickup truck. We are both teaching school at Antilles School and the boat is on a permanent mooring for the the next three years.
We have been busy, and now there is no time to relax! Lisa and Teka were taking it easy a year ago, but now we never have time for this. But we will keep this picture posted to remind us how it used to be...> >
If you wish to contact us you may
use our internet email address sy_sd@yahxx.com (change the
xx to oo). We have a mail forwarding service if you really need to send us a
note - 411 Walnut Street, #1477, Green Cove Springs, Florida, zip code
32043. However, please keep mail to a minimum as we have to pay
sometimes-exhorbitant international shipping costs. Also we have a cell phone now - 340-514-6591
We also have access to email while underway via slow radio link
through the incredible generosity of HAM radio operators around the world who
operate the Winlink radio email system. Our radio HAM callsign is
KG4JXT, and we can receive email directed to "callsign"@winlink.org. With our
callsign you can also find our current position via the winlink site (the blue tag at the end of all the green ones...), or try YOTREPS.
Chronology
We left St. Petersburg, Florida, in April 2001 and spent most of May in Key West. By June we reached Isla Mujeres, Mexico, and soon continued on south along the Mexican coast. We spent late June through the end of August in Belize, and September through November in Guatemala's Rio Dulce. In December we returned to Belize briefly on the way to the Bay Islands of Honduras.
We began 2002 with a trip to the shipyard at La Ceiba Honduras, and continued our travels in the Bay Islands through March. We spent the month of April in the Vivorillo Cays near Cabo Gracias a Dios, and May in the Colombian islands of Providencia and San Andres. In June, we reached Panama in time to receive news that we had work in Maracaibo, Venezuela. So we spent the month of July beating northeastward and reached Maracaibo at the end of the month.
We made a brief foray to Aruba in the summer of 2003, but otherwise our sailing was limited to an occasional Sunfish ride at the Los Andes Yacht Club. We traveled inland to Merida, Venezuela, went to Caracas, Venezuela, to be issued work visas, and at the end of the year we visited Machu Picchu in Peru.
While finishing up our employment in Maracaibo in 2004, we made overland trips to Quito, Ecuador, and Los Llanos - the wetland plains around the Rio Apure southeast of Merida. We also visited Barquisimeto, Venezuela with our ultimate frisbee team. In June we departed Maracaibo for Aruba, but could not get there with the strong winds in the Gulf of Venezuela. Instead we went west to Cartagena, Colombia, where we spent the rest of the year.
At the beginning of 2005, we checked out of Colombia and went to the San Blas islands of Panama. We stayed in these islands half the year and returned to Cartagena in July for another six month stay in Colombia.
We repeated our 2005 cycle in 2006 with a trip to Panama and back to Colombia. But in October we left Cartagena while the trade winds were stilled for a couple of weeks, and sailed downwind to Curacao. We stayed at Spanish Waters lagoon near the east end of Curacao for the remainder of 2006.
In early 2007, we departed Curacao and made a four-day sail to the west end of Puerto Rico. During the following two months we cruised along the south coast of Puerto Rico with the longest visits at Ponce and Salinas. In early March we passed the east end of Puerto Rico and transited Roosevelt Roads to the island of Culebra. After a few more days, we moved on to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We have settled into Charlotte Amalie for a while.