Puerto Rico is a beautiful island. We have toured Old San Juan, the rain forest of El Yunque and the Observatory at Arecibo. As a result we have driven around and across the entire island. In addition we have sailed the waters south of the island and anchored in the Lee of Isle Caja de Muertos en route from Boqueron to Salinas.

Currently we're anchored in the harbor of Playa Salinas, a small town on Puerto Rico's southern coast. It is a surprisingly quiet anchorage given the number of boats here. By quiet, I mean there is not a lot of chatter on the VHF and there does not appear to be an active "cruiser" community here. Having said that, there are several stores and restaurants within walking distance that service boaters, a marine store, a hardware store, the Cruiser's Galley restaurant with wireless internet access and a marina with a laundry.

To see Puerto Rico we rented cars, one in Boqueron and one in Salinas. Although I've enjoyed the conveniences of Puerto Rico, their car rental services leave much to be desired. The car we rented in Boqueron had a piece of window trim fall off while we were driving it. No reason. It just fell off as were we headed east on the autopista. Of course the rental company wanted to charge us for their lack of maintenance. I argued our case, we did nothing but drive the car. Not sure if the charge for the replacement trim will show up on our credit card or not. Probably. Then with the rental from Salinas, the battery died when we were in San Juan, an hour away and on the other side of the mountains from the rental shop. And naturally it happened at 5:30 p.m. when the rental office was closed. Fortunately we were in the Costco parking lot at the time. The folks at Costco were extremely helpful. They tried jumping our rental with two different car batteries. Once it became obvious that the rental battery was not coming back to life, we purchased another one. Good thing we were at Costco where they sell batteries. Then the Costco guys helped install it in the parking lot and didn't charge for their service. So all is good. Right? No. As we left Costco, the air conditioning died! One really wants an air-conditioned car in Puerto Rico. It is hot and very humid here. Ken was not a happy camper. But in the end, we were able to get back to Salinas. The car rental company reimbursed us for the cost of the battery and acknowledged that the air conditioning had gone on the fritz earlier in the week. The thing was, this was the only rental car they had. We had to wait a day for it!

We are ready to go and the weather looks good, only we are waiting on the delivery of a package. So, we'll stay put until our delivery arrives. Then we're headed to the Spanish Virgin Islands (SVI), about 20 miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. In fact, the Spanish Virgin Islands are part of Puerto Rico. My daughters, Julia and Theresa, are going to join us for a week from April 4th to the 11th. It looks like we'll meet up at Isle de Culebra, one of the two larger SVI islands. Although it's possible we'll be in St. Thomas in the USVI when they arrive. The schedule of a cruiser is not of one's choosing.

Puerto Rico it is worth seeing. As with all of the Caribbean islands, a visit to Puerto Rico is a lesson in history. It is in these islands, close to 500 years ago, the New World and the old collided. Contemporary Puerto Rico is vibrant and reflects a mix of European, Indian and African cultures and heritage as well as U.S. influences.

Old San Juan is charming. Ken and I spent a night at Gran Hotel El Convento, originally a convent built in the 1600's. We wandered down narrow brick streets lined with two and three story buildings. Again, the Spanish wrought iron balconies with flowers were everywhere. Many of the streets were paved with blue colored brick, unusual and attractive. We took in the sights, Fuerte San Felipe del Morro, Catedral de San Juan where the tomb of Ponce de Leon is located and the old city wall.

In addition to seeing Old San Juan, we visited El Yunque, the Caribbean National Forest. The park is home to a lush and beautiful rain forest. And, yes , it rained while we were there. We started our hike just after a shower giving us a true, but not too wet, rain forest experience. From within the park one can look out over the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Caribbean Sea. It is fun to see the ocean from the land and know we'll be sailing across it in a week or so as we head to the Virgin Islands.

And we took in the tour of the Bacardi Rum factory. A huge operation that distills more than 100,000 gallons of rum per day!

Aricebo Observatory was worth the winding drive across the mountains from southern Puerto Rico to the north coast. We took the most direct, but not the easiest route there. We were on narrow, winding mountain roads that were in need of repair. Beautiful, but nerve wracking to drive. On the way back, we decided that the longer route might be a better choice. The observatory is home to the world's largest radio telescope. A 20-acre "dish" is nestled between the mountain tops. The transmitting and receiving instruments are suspended 50 stories above the dish by cables attached to three supporting towers. It is quite something. Scientists from around the world come here to use this telescope. Proposals or requests are submitted to the observatory and from these requests use of the radio telescope is granted. Not all requests are granted. I'm not sure how many or what percentage of the requests are successful in securing time with the telescope. It appears that the radio telescope is in use 24 hours a day. And yes, from here the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) goes on.

And here are the photos!


Isle Caja de Muertos, or Coffin Island, off the southern coast of Puerto Rico. A hazy day.

















The light house on Isle Caja de Muertos, built by the Spanish. A prime example of Spanish public works architecture.

















A street in Old San Juan. It is hard to see, but the bricks that pave the streets are blue.






















The walkway located along the harbor entrance at the base of the fort, El Morro.

















Another view of the wall that supports the Castillo de San Felipe del Morro (Castle of St. Philip of the Headland).

















The entrance to San Juan harbor.

















Another view of the fort. The turret is the symbol on the Puerto Rician license plate.

















Campo del Morro. Once military grounds, now a park filled with kite flyers.

















From above, cannons, weighing up to 10,000 lbs, were rolled down this ramp to the level below.

















Another view of the entrance to the San Juan Harbor from El Morro.

















A typical street in Old San Juan, narrow with two-story buildings supporting balconies decorated in ironwork.






















The radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory, largest radio telescope in the world. See how the dish is nestled in the hill tops? Note the tower on the left side of the photo. Three of these towers support the transmitting and receiving equipment.

















Shadow of the transmitter and receiver on the dish.

















Transmitter and receiver of the Arcebio radio telescope. This equipment is suspended 50 stories over the dish via cables suspended from three supporting poles or towers.

How soon folks back home forget about you. A couple of months ago if we hadn't updated this journal for a week we'd have heard from at least 3 or 4 of you wondering what had happened to us. So soon so forgotten...

We've been in Salinas on the south coast of Puerto Rico for the past week. We arrived last Monday morning after an early-morning departure from Caya de Muerto. Wednesday we rented a car and drove along the south and east coasts toward San Juan. The scenary was pretty spectacular, particularly on the east coast, with the islands of Vieques and Culebra visible in the hazy distance. We stopped at the Caribbean National Forest, also known as El Yunque, a tropical rain forest. Very, very humid. We did a quick hike alongside a river, but it was so hot and humid that we turned around in just a short distance.

On the way into San Juan we called and made hotel reservations at the "editor's choice" hotel in old San Juan, the hotel El Convento. It was a bit steeper than we'd normally like to pay, but it was truly a memorable night. The building was originally a convent built in 1646 to house a convent for women widowed in the new world. It's seem several reincarnations as a hotel over the the years, but the latest is quite elegant and very charming. Nice to actually feel we got good value for our hotel dollar. If you're ever in San Juan, check it out.

Thursday we toured old San Juan and in the afternoon we did the Baccardi factory tour. San Juan was very nice and very historic. Recall that Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic had the first European buildings in the new world, well old San Juan has the second oldest buildings in the new world, but the difference is hardly noticeable after all these years. San Juan has the much more extensive defensive fortifications, the sea-front fort El Morro was spectacular, perched on the end of the island defending the north Atlantic approach and the huge San Juan bay. The Baccardi factory tour was all marketing glitz with a couple of small free rum drinks included for free.

On Friday we drove across the Cordillera Central, the mountain chain that runs the length of the center of the island, to the radio telescope at Arrecibo. This is probably familiar to most of you from one of the many movies in which it's appeared, notably the movie Contact and the Bond movie Goldeneye. It's the largest radio telescope in the world, built into a natural sinkhole in the hills. Well worth a visit and we got to travel through some very rural parts of Puerto Rico.

Yesterday was mail day as we received all our accumulated mail and packages. We're waiting on one more delivery and then we'll be out of here, on our way to the Spanish Virgin Islands, Vieques and Culebra, which are about 20 miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico, and 20 miles west of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Looks like we'll have company in early April as well. Julia and Theresa, Maryann's daughters will be visiting for a week or so, our first real visitors.

March 16, 2007

Hello Everyone!

Yes, we're still on our adventure! I know, I know it has been almost a month since the last update. Part of the reason I have not written is that my laptop was dropped into the Luperon harbor and stopped working. In addition, we spent almost a week getting from Luperon to Puerto Rico during which time we had only iridium (satellite) phone access to the Internet. The iridium access is expensive and text only. We use it for weather updates and emergency contact. And once in Puerto Rico, it took a couple of days to replace my computer.

As you can imagine, I was not a happy camper when my laptop got wet. Of course this happened on the one day I did not carry it to shore in the waterproof dry bag. The computer was in my backpack, which we set on the dock. It was a floating dock, and unbeknownst to us, very wobbly. When we climbed out of the dinghy and on to the dock, the dock tipped and the backpack fell into the water. Ken grabbed it right away, but not soon enough. Salt water seeped into the case. We saw how bad it was when we took it to CompUSA in San Juan, PR and had the tech support folks open it up to see if it could be fixed. No. Just a bit of salt water, maybe two tablespoons at most, had seeped into the case and destroyed the motherboard, the connection to the keyboard pad and some other stuff. The HD and memory were salvageable, but that was it. CompUSA was able to copy the data from my folders to a DVD, so I did not lose everything. Still, very frustrating.

As Ken and I were talking about our options, the service guy handed me a note saying he had a MacBook Pro (same as my laptop) he could sell us for considerably less than what a new laptop would cost. Apparently he gets a deep discount and had just purchased a computer two weeks ago. Of course, this was not "good for his company" so we could not discuss with him in the store. However, we agreed to talk to him over the phone. Turns out he had a two week old computer with the receipt and packaging (opened, but all in place) and was willing to make some quick money on an opportunity that presented itself. End of story is that we bought the computer from him. So now I have a laptop again. So nice. Bad news is that in saving the data, CompUSA only saved the data in my folders, not data used in the applications such as iPhoto or iCal or the address book.

We have the hard drive from my old computer. Ken is going to see if he can put my old HD into this new computer. If so, I'd have all of my data back. We'll see.

So now you know the why you've not heard from me. Hope not to have to replace another computer in the near future! Two computers in 6 months is enough!

Back to our travels and what we've been up to the last few weeks.

We enjoyed our stay in the Dominican Republic. In addition to seeing Santo Domingo, we toured the local waterfalls and went to Carnival. Photos below. The waterfalls were located in a park and we were led up the falls by park guides. We climbed up 7 falls and then slid and jumped back down them. The guides were very helpful as they pulled us up through the falls. Some falls looked impossible to climb up, but with the help of the guides we made it. Then it was like a water park going down. Each fall was a slide into a deep pool below.

Like the falls, Carnival was a tour with other cruisers. This time we took a bus to La Vega, about a 2 hour drive, to join in the festivities. The costumes, like the Bahamian Junkanoo celebration, were quite elaborate. Only these were made of sequined and metallic fabrics, not cardboard, paint and crepe paper. Carnival is a street party not just a parade. Everyone walks along the streets, both the participants and the observers. Organized groups of costumed revelers performed dances before judging stands where music was played so loud it pounded throughout one's body. I felt like I was vibrating as I walked by each judging area!

One of the traditions of Carnival is to have the devil driven out of your body or to be cleansed of evil. The devil is driven out physically via a good whack on the bottom with a soft fabric ball that is attached to a rope. Kind of a safe cat-o-nine-tails beating. Anyone can purchase a "whacker" but mostly the revelers carried them as part of their costumes. At first I was unaware of this tradition and was thoroughly cleansed of evil. Devil be gone! But I quickly learned not to leave my derriere exposed. We were all subject to cleansing--men, women, boys and girls. However, it looked like the young men particularly enjoyed this tradition and the young Dominican women were surely devil-free at the end of the day.

Back in Luperon, I took advantage of the hair-cut offering at the Sunday cruiser gathering and had my hair trimmed while sitting out-of-doors under the trees. Also, purchased some delicious homemade bread and English muffins from a woman who runs a bakery for the cruisers. It was a good visit, but I am glad to be moving on. Funny how one gets antsy to move on when living a nomadic life.

Leaving Luperon was not as easy as expected. We needed a three-day weather window to get to Puerto Rico. One finally came up and we left. But once we were on our way, the engine started running hot and would not run over 2000 RPMs. In addition, it started spewing blue smoke. So 50 miles out of Luperon, we ducked in to an anchorage at Rio San Juan. The next day we decided that our safest option was to return to Luperon, a known place, and see if we could diagnose the engine issue and get if fixed. If you've read Ken's journal on our blog, you know that a dirty prop that was the culprit. The prop was covered with barnacles and could not turn as quickly as the engine could run, thus overheating and smoke. We had the prop cleaned. Viola! the problem was solved! A relief that the fix was so simple. Ken had imagined much worse.

So we waited two more days in Luperon for another weather window, and headed out again. This time we made it to Samana, the peninsula at the northwest corner of Hispaniola. Awesome scenery. Rugged, palm tree covered mountains that dropped steeply into the ocean. Strange to see palm trees, not evergreens, silhouetted along the mountain ridges. I understand some of the Jurassic Park scenes were shot on the Samana peninsula. It has a prehistoric feeling to it. From Samana we made the 140 passage to Puerto Rico. It was delightfully uneventful. This passage is the last of the long passages we have to make while sailing south in the Caribbean. From now on we have day hops or night passages of 10 hours or less.

Puerto Rico is like the states. It's referred to as the 51st state, and is the most affluent of the Caribbean Islands. Quite a change from the Dominican Republic. So nice to have the conveniences of well maintained roads and infrastructure as well as marine markers! We rented a car for two days and were able to get to San Juan for the needed computer repair mentioned earlier. The island is only 35 by 100 miles. We drove around the entirety of it on our trip to and from San Juan yesterday.

We also provisioned. We found a Costco in San Juan! And the Pueblo market is just like your local Safeway. I know, this kind of provisioning is not so exotic, but it is very convenient! Ken has his Thomas' English Muffins in the cupboard. I was able to buy a variety of fresh fruit including pears and provolone cheese.

So strange to see the difference a 70-mile passage can make. It is amazing that islands so close in proximity are so vastly different in geography, economics and culture. In the Dominican Republic the electricity went off almost daily. The water was a hit or miss situation. More than once I had to wait to pick up my wash from the laundry service because the electricity or water was not on so they could not complete the job. In contrast, the coast of Puerto Rico was lit up like a Christmas tree when we arrived. Businesses here could not survive with an on-and-off-again utility provider. These differences are the most surprising experience of our journey so far. The Bahamas are as different from the Turks and Caicos as Hispaniola is from Puerto Rico.

We are in Boqueron and planning to leave this evening to begin our trek east across the waters that border southern Puerto Rico. Next anticipated anchorage is Isla Caja de Mueros, know better as Coffin Island. From there we head to Salinas, located mid-way across southern Puerto Rico. We'll stay a few days in Salinas as we hope to have our mail and packages delivered there. We might also rent a car again and go see El Yunque, the Caribbean National Forest. Supposed to be great hiking. Then it's on to the Virgin Islands--Spanish, US and British. I'm looking forward to island hopping down to Trinadad.


March 18, 2007

It is now Sunday. We sailed through Saturday night from Boqueron to Ponce where we filled up with diesel. Then headed out to Coffin island where we anchored for the night. We weighed anchor at 4:00 this morning and motored the three hours to Salinas where we dropped anchor around 7:30 this morning.

As always, check out svAurora.com to see what Ken has to say. He posts more often than I send out updates.


As promised, photos:

Here we are in our waterfall gear! Life vests and helmets were required for the waterfall tour. Unusual precautions in the Dominican Republic.

















And here are the rest of the cruisers who went on the waterfall tour. Fun day.


















The bottom of the falls. We had climbed up and jumped/slid down 7 falls. Ken jumped in to this pool, I slid in.

















This shot was taken at the "botanical" garden, a stop on the waterfall tour. A European couple had built a home and lovely garden that is now a park. Not sure it was a"botanical" garden, but it was a beautiful place to visit.


















Another botanical garden photo.

















Carnival in the Dominican Republic is a big event.

















Carnival was a street party as well as a parade. Both the participants and those watching walked the streets together.






















One of the side streets at Carnival. The umbrellas provided shade. It was a hot day.

















Judges stand.


















A carnival mask!






















As you can see, everyone walks the streets at Carnival.

















Many of the Carnival revelers were young men, and like this guy wore sunglasses instead of masks.






















Feeble protection from the whacks delivered by the Carnival participants.

















More Carnival.






















Back to Luperon. A shot of the harbor. Lots of cruisers!

















We were at the front of this line up of boats. Several left Luperon when we did and we have seen them again in Puerto Rico.






















The town of Samana.

Amazing what a difference a 70-mile channel will make. We've been in Puerto Rico since Monday morning and it's like night and day between here and the Dominican Republic. There we had donkey-drawn carts in the capitol city; here we have freeways, endless fast-food outlets, and mall after mall after mall. Puerto Rico might as well be the 51rst state as it's already just like the states here. Yesterday, for instance, we drove to the suburbs of San Juan to find a CompUSA, since we needed expert assistance with Maryann's Macbook Pro (slight case of salt water intrusion when it rolled off the dinghy dock in Luperon). We zipped across the island on a major freeway, ending up in a mall that was indistinguishable from those in the states, though with a bit more Spanish. We shopped at a Costco along the way and ate at a Chilis. It's nice to be back in the land of decent infrastructure (nice roads, ubiquitous ATMs, credit-card accepting establishments, good cell-phone coverage, etc), but we also feel we've kind of dropped out of the cruising life for a bit - or maybe returned to what we experience on the east coast of the US. Of course, we're still in shorts and tshirts and it's the middle of March, so that's nice.

The guy at CompUSA opened the laptop, only to discover extensive corrosion. Even a few drops of salt water do a number on electrical components! We managed to save the hard drive, so no data was lost. We also saved the RAM, but otherwise everything inside was toast.

We ended up replacing the laptop at a considerable discount, but I'll let Maryann tell that story.

Hi all. We left Luperon on Thursday evening at around 7PM and sailed all night and the next day to get to Samana on the east coast of the Dominican Republic. Samana is a very cute little town perched on a hillside, but we didn't get a chance to do any sightseeing, as we needed all day Saturday to recuperate from our 24-hour passage. We didn't even put the dinghy in the water, since the local bureaucrats came to the boat for the necessary paperwork, and payment of "fees".

Yesterday morning around 4AM we raised the anchor and set out across the Mona Passage for Puerto Rico. The weather window was fantastic. The seas were down and the wind didn't blow any harder than 10 knots yesterday during the day. And the wind came close to dying entirely last night. We actually had to restrict our speed so as to not arrive too early this morning. Of course it was mostly motorsailing, though we did manage to actually turn off the engine for a while early this morning, and really sail! That was very nice for a change.

We arrived at Mayaguez in Puerto Rico this morning around 7AM, just as it was getting light. Dropped the anchor and visited the immigration and customs folks before the huge ferry from the Dominican Republic arrived at 8AM. Very nice to be back in the USA again. After checking in we left for Boqueron, which is just a little over 10 miles south of Mayaguez. Grabbed a nap while it rained (seems the rain usually comes on these very calm and windless days), and them came ashore to see Boqueron this afternoon.

Boqueron is a college hotspot for the entire east coast of Puerto Rico and is apparently a major party town. However, it's Monday, so it's pretty dead. Don't think we'll be here through the weekend, but we'll see. We need to rent a car here as public transportation isn't nearly as efficient and easy to use as in the DR. We'll be reprovisioning, getting Maryann' computer fixed (it took a bit of a saltwater bath when her backpack fell off a floating dock), getting a replacement cell phone for me (it was in my pocket when the dinghy got swamped), and we'll also be getting some charts for our chart plotter. Exciting times.

For those of you on the edge of your seats, waiting to hear the resolution to our engine problems - the problem has been fixed. We asked a bunch of people and the consensus seemed to be that we probably had a dirty prop. Well, we knew this since Maryann had dove on it a couple of days ago. We just didn't believe a few barnacles could make the engine labor so. Today we had a local go down and clean the prop (Luperon harbor is almost totally land-locked and we think the town's sewage drains into the harbor - the locals don't seem to mind going into the water, but we aren't!). Anyway, instant fix!

We'll be looking for the next weather window to repeat our overnight to Rio San Juan or maybe even all the way to Escondido. It's looking like Thursday or Friday might do it. Keeping our fingers crossed!

Contrary to what we thought yesterday, we didn't "definitely go to Escondido". I poked and prodded the Yanmar diesel engine for several hours yesterday, but nothing seemed to help. For those who missed the last update: the engine won't produce max power under load, tends to overheat at what should be reasonable RPMs, and has been burning oil.

We left Rio San Juan anchorage last night around 8PM. The swells really made life miserable all day yesterday, and I was even more miserable crawling around the engine compartment while the boat was rocking side-to-side. We were very happy to get underway. But once we started the engine we were getting great clouds of white smoke out the exhaust! So now we add burning oil to our engine woes.

We made the very tough decision to head back to Luperon, rather than continue on to Escondido and jump off for Puerto Rico. We had a lovely 50-mile motor-sail back here, trying to run the engine at the lowest RPMs possible, arriving this morning around 7AM. We're now looking for some local expertise in diesel engines, but so far it's been discouraging.

Other than that we're happy and healthy and would really like to get to Puerto Rico, but it looks like even if we get the diesel fixed we'll be stuck here until at least the weekend, due to the high winds we're seeing.

From the patriarch:

We left Luperon last night at dusk, and are currently in Rio San Juan with another 50 miles left before we hit the channel between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. We're definitely going on to Escondido tonight, but we're having an overheating problem on our main engine. Need to figure that one out before we can leave. The anchorage here, at least the one we're in, is incredibly rolly - worst we've seen to-date.