La Trucha Caribbean Cruise 2004

Introduction

La Trucha resting easy dockside somewhere in the Bahamas

This website, with luck, will chronicle and document some of the places, sights, people and adventures La Trucha (a Pearson 40 flush-deck center boarder) and her crew experience. Thereby, this will be our cruise book, our log, our story for about a month, beginning sometime after the 9th of October. Nothing at this point is really set in concrete, except maybe our start and ending points. Though not everyone starts and ends at a particular spot, the ship and her skipper and owner, Jim Bradshaw of Brazoria, Texas will: Houston, Texas. We hope to sail to certain points in the Caribbean, avoiding weather, and picking out spots of interest and intrigue. I myself plan on meeting the ship in either Houston or the west coast of Florida. Lots depends on scheduling. Right now I'm committed to a Half-Marathon race near home, which once over, 9 Oct, I can go meet the ship. Exactly what crew and where she'll be is yet to be determined. I'll try to keep things current; with my trusty Sony digital and internet access, perhaps this site can be updated in a timely manner. Obviously, when at sea, uploading files is going to be a bit hard to do, so every port stop, where I can get a reasonable connection I'll add pictures, and text. For feedback, I'll be checking: [email protected]

In addition to sailing aboard La Trucha, I'm looking forward to a chance to cruise the Bahamas again with my cousin, who plans on meeting us in his Cessna. With any luck we can coordinate things for provisions, transporting crew, amongst other things. By boat is nice, but plane is faster. Anyway, from now on I'll try to fill in the blanks under categories headed up in the navigation bar to the left. For updates check "Ship's Log".

Well things change, even for this introduction. Plan now is to drive out to Houston to meet Jim and La Trucha, in company of Jim the younger sometime around Halloween. We're still talking 2004 as hurricanes this year have set the pot a brewing in the Gulf and Caribbean. What a year for hurricanes: Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne - some of these tore up either islands in the Caribbean, the Florida peninsula and the US Southeast, all three, or some combination thereof.

Anyway, plans for La Trucha still include the Dominican Republic - Luperon to be more exact, and possibly somewhere on the west Florida coast. Hispaniola could be 4 to 6 weeks from our departure in Houston. We'll see!

We also need to get La Trucha ready for sea, with some minor house keeping projects: anchor tackle, mast sheaves, etc. With luck will be off sometime early November.

Anyway things have changed again, even for purposes of this intro - new plans we're headed first to the Yucatan Peninsula, then south to Central America, maybe even to the Panama Locks.

Only operable link as of now is "Ship's Log"; that is where the meat of this website is located. Updates, what we're up to, our current position can be found through "Ship's Log". I'll be bringing up the other links sometime in the near future.
Fairs winds Following Seas!

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