8 April 2012 Cayo Obispo, Puerto Rico
It’s Easter Sunday, so we planned on a quiet day.
We’ve been living on Alba for exactly one year today, so I worked out a few statistics. In the past twelve months, we’ve sailed 3600 miles, but we’re still only 220 miles to the west of Grenada, so we need to start clocking up some miles if we are going to travel 25,000 miles around the world in the next nine years. We’ve not done very well on our motoring to sailing ratio – we’ve put 435 hours on the engine, which is indicative of the type of sailing that we’ve been doing – short hops and often in the lee of islands. Running the engine for four straight days motoring from Curacao to Trinidad last October accounted for 20% of our motoring.
Glenys rang her brother Gareth because she was worried about how her mum was getting on. Gareth said that Ceris has had a few funny turns recently and has been in to hospital a few times over the past two weeks, but the doctors have finally decided that she has an infection of some sort and put her on antibiotics, so hopefully she’ll settle down now.
We spent the day reading, playing on the computer and generally chilling out. Glenys made Moroccan Chicken Tagine for dinner with Couscous.
9 April 2012 Cayo Obispo, Puerto Rico
We picked up a hire car. I was pretty nervous because I hadn’t driven for a year. In the trips in the taxi yesterday, I’d noticed that the Puerto Ricans not only drive on the wrong side of the road, but they also drive like lunatics. However, I donned my Reacto-Fear Sunglasses and we headed off towards San Juan.
We didn’t have a road map and immediately made a navigational error, ending up in the middle of downtown Fajardo in rush hour. I decided to try to go around the High Street and finished up going down what we “think” was a one-way street - the wrong way. I say ”think” because there were no road signs to indicate a one way system, but all the parked cars were facing in the same direction (towards me) and all of the traffic was driving straight at me. In addition, the drivers that I encountered didn’t honk their horns or make dramatic gestures with their fingers, so perhaps it’s a non-official one-way street. After a couple of hundred metres, I decided that discretion is the better part of valour and turned down a side street, back to the high street.
We eventually made it to the freeway, but couldn’t buy a road map for love nor money – we gave up after trying a garage and a Super K-Mart. It wasn’t a huge problem because the road into San Juan was well signposted and we managed to find a multi-story car park right in the centre of the old town.
San Juan is a city built by the Spanish in the 1500’s and is therefore incredibly old by American standards. The Spanish built a big fort at the head of the well-sheltered bay and it became a major stopping place for the Spanish fleet taking gold and silver from the New World to Europe. Over its history, the town has been attacked by the British, the Dutch and even the USA, but no country other than Spain managed to hold it for long. Eventually, Puerto Rico was handed over to the USA at the end of the Spanish American war in 1898. The old town is interesting to walk around, reminding me of some of the great cities in Europe, with lovely cobbled streets and very Spanish architecture.
We had lunch at a small Puerto Rican restaurant where Glenys had a local dish called Mofongo Rellano. It’s made from mashed plantains and is very tasty. I’m sure that Glenys will be trying to reproduce it soon.
We left San Juan and drove back to Farjado to do some more food shopping. We went to another supermarket to get a bit of variety – our biggest problem is the rubbish beer that they sell over here. The choices are a range of insipid, gassy American beers and, what is worse, they are mostly “Lite Beer” – which to me is an oxymoron. The only real choice is Heineken which is very expensive and comes in very small cans, which only serves to create twice as much garbage.
10 April 2012 Cayo Obispo, Puerto Rico
We drove to the El Yunque National Park and went walking on a trail to the top of El Yunque. It’s all in rain forest and (errr), it rained, so we were dripping wet through when we arrived at the top. It was a very nice three hour hike and good to be out walking again. The national park is a popular tourist stop and there were some very ill equipped people in plastic ponchos, struggling up the path in their flip flops.
In the afternoon, we stopped off at Luquillo, where there are lots of small kiosks selling snacks. We had an Empanadilla (Chicken Pastie) and a Piononos , which is a kind of pie made from sweet plantains and minced beef – very nice. We called into Wal Mart on the way back and did boring stuff like buying some new pillows. I’ve been unable to buy any pop rivets for our broken Rod Kicker.
11 April 2012 Cayo Obispo to Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico
I managed to talk to a guy called Dennis who runs a weather net in the morning at 0745 on 4420Khz. He couldn’t hear me, but Ian from “Blackthorn Lady” was on channel and relayed for me for a while. I asked Dennis about a weather window for our five day passage to the Bahamas and he told me that there’s a cold front coming from the north and we need to wait for that to go through so Monday (23rd) is probably the best bet for the start of our five day passage to the Bahamas. Dennis knows Sergio, the previous owner of Alba.
I made a temporary kicking strap from the block and tackle from one of our running backstays, which we hardly ever use. It looks the part and I’m guessing is a strong as the original rod kicker. We went to Sunbay Marina, refuelled and then sailed to Culebra which is 20 miles as the crow flies. The wind was a pleasant 15 knots, but dead on the nose, so we ended up sailing 42 miles as we tacked back and forth – it took us 7½ hours.
We anchored inside the reef at Ensenada Dakity.
12 April 2012 Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico
We motored to the anchorage at Dewey and went to the launderette – I've not been to a launderette for over twenty years – it wasn't as bad as I remember.
We chilled out for the afternoon and then went to the bar for happy hour and onto a pizza bar for dinner.
13 April 2012 Isla Culebra to Isla de Culebrita, Puerto Rico
I chatted with Dennis again this morning and the cold front is still coming down from the north and it will bring strong NE winds with it tomorrow evening and Sunday. It looks like we’ll have to wait until Tuesday (17th) for the large swell caused by this wind to die down.
We took another two loads of washing to the launderette in the morning and then motored around to Isla de Culebrita with “Blackthorn Lady” to have a change of surroundings while we still have pleasant weather. Bahia de Tortuga is a lovely bay with a white sandy beach and is surrounded by reefs and clear water. We went snorkelling which was good and then went to “Blackthorn Lady” for a barbeque with Tony and Rosemary from “English Rose”. It was good to catch up with Ian and Jacqui, but we drank too much red wine.
14 April 2012 Isla de Culebrita to Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico
Glenys and I were feeling a little “dull” this morning. We took the dinghy to the beautiful beach and went for a short walk up to the abandoned lighthouse on the top of the hill. It’s a nice little walk. The island is a protected nature reserve and there’s a well maintained path starting from the middle of the beach. The lighthouse is derelict, but we managed to climb up to the top of the tower on the dodgy, rusty, spiral stairs. We had a great view of the Spanish Virgin Islands from up there.
Back on Alba, we went for a swim to cool down and spotted a nice big Green Turtle and watched a Remora who was lurking around underneath the boat. The cloud was starting to build up by eleven o’clock, so we motored back to Ensenada Honda and anchored off Dewey. Kath and Jim have just arrived on “Flawless D” after a five day passage from Curacao, so we went for a quick chat with them. The rain and wind from the cold front hit us at three o’clock and it poured down for the rest of the afternoon.
We donned our waterproofs and went back to “Flawless D” for a few beers in the evening, while the wind howled and the rain lashed.