Before heading south for hurricane season, we had to stop for a while at what I consider to be the most livable island in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico. This place felt like an old glove when we pulled back in to Salinas. Since most boats are already either north or south for hurricane season, it isn’t crowded in the anchorage and we ended up dropping the hook a few feet from where we spent a month last year.
Part of the impetus for the stop here was to ship in stuff we needed as well as some stuff we wanted since Amazon delivers here and we are able to receive mail and packages at the office of the nearby marina.
Da Rivah?
After the loud-mouthed man from New Jersey (presumably, based on accent and demeanor) told us about “Da Rivah” last year, we’ve been on the hunt. We still have no clue what he was talking about, but we did decide to go see the Río Camuy, since an underground river seemed pretty cool.
On the way we stopped at the Caguana Ceremonial Indigenous Heritage Center. It was quite beautiful with rivers and sharp peaks all around. It is on the site of where celebrations and gatherings of all kinds took place when the Taino people were the main inhabitants of the island.
Large playing fields were used in ball sports as well as dancing and musical celebrations. The main field was lined with large rocks and petroglyphs
Of course it was a million degrees and right around midday so it was dead quiet and we had the place all to ourselves. It would have been a disappointing trip if we had driven two hours just to see this one spot, but since it was only 20-30 minutes out of the way en route to Da Rivah, it was great.
Next we made it to the Río Camuy. I went to buy our tickets and the lady running the place kept acting like she didn’t speak any English.
Seriously though, it went fine. There used to be a tram that took you to the mouth of the cave but it was destroyed in Hurricane Maria so we had to ride on golf-cart style cars in small groups to get down - and back up. The Camuy is the third largest underground river in the world. We got to see tons of the usual cave structures and quite a few bats as well.
The hike through the cave was quite nice since the temperature was perfect. We all brought our headlamps so we could look around at whatever we wanted, but Grete carried my diving flashlight which is like a billion lumens so she was lighting up nests of bats at 100 yards. It was kind of awesome.
At the far end of the main cave was an overlook over the river with a waterfall all inside of a massive sinkhole, which was pretty cool.
Old San Juan
OK, we love Old San Juan. So, I decided we would go up there the day after my birthday so we could stop at the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday dinner on the way back. It was a cool second visit into the fort where we got to see the completion of some impressive restoration of cannons that were all dingy with silvery wood last year.
Also, now that we’ve been up here a few times, I knew to bring a kite this time so we could join the dozens of other people out there in the blasting wind. I think the combination of none of us really knowing how to fly a kite and the 20+ knot winds weren’t the best combination, but we had fun for an hour or so anyway.
We went for a walk along the entirety of Paseo del Morro on the seaward side of the city walls. We did part of it last time but it was getting late so we didn’t finish. We did it this time and resolved to come back for a run in the future.
We headed back to the car and stopped for some coffee since we were techincally celebrating my birthday even though it was a day late. They had a tic-tac-toe board so we all played a bit. Fira beat Grete a couple of times, so it was good that we stopped for her to clear her head :)
Second trip
A few days after my birthday is Grete’s birthday. We had talked about going for a run in the early morning on Paseo del Morro and how cool it would be to see the old city lit up at night. Grete also wanted to eat her birthday dinner in old town.
So, after discussing it we decided to get a hotel room in old town and do an overnight off the boat, which we have never done. It went good…until it didn’t.
Check in to the hotel was easy, the room was…not quite worth what we paid, but it was rustic and carried some old town charm, so that was pretty unique. We went out for steak at an Argentinian restaurant right across the street. Since it was a birthday dinner, we got all dressed up (for us anyway).
Dinner was amazing, as was the bottle of Malbec we took down.
We went back to the hotel and readied the kids for bed. Then Grete and I went out for a walk around in the night. The bars seemed fun and we walked up the hill to go look at the fort lights before we went in to get a night cap. The fort lights were beautiful at night, there was a rap battle circle right near which seemed fun except I don’t speak Spanish so they might not have been saying anything meaningful.
We started walking back up the hill to the bars and the streetlights all went out. It was exactly 9pm, and we thought it was strange that they turn off all of the streetlights at 9pm in a town with an active nightlife, but what do we know. When we got back to the street lined with pubs, they were all dark and closed. We realized the power had gone out in the city and stood around for ten minutes or so trying to decide what to do. Ultimately we decided to go back to the hotel since we figured the kids might be a bit freaked out by the fact that the lights and AC went away.
We got to the room, which was heating up quickly with no air flow and no AC and went to bed. Not to sleep of course because it was hot. After lying there in my own sweat for an hour or two, I heard yelling, honking, and banging in the distance. I thought it was odd but figured there was some kind of parade celebration going on. Then it got closer. And closer. And LOUDER! I couldn’t tell what was going on but decided it was likely safest to stay up in the room rather than go down to the street to see. The shouting was more like a speech now with applause and cheering in response.
It lasted until about 2:30am around which time the power was back on and the AC cranking at full blast. Of course, all the lights came on too since no switches had ever been turned off. So, Grete ran around the apartment shutting them all off and we got a few hours of sleep.
The next day I searched online and apparently the power outage affected around half of the island’s population and has been an ongoing problem. The noise is because our room was about 2/3 of a block from the Governor’s mansion. There is a police barricade to keep people away and our room was directly upstairs from that barricade. So, the massive throng of people were effectively shouting at us for a couple of hours and I don’t imagine the governor heard a thing over his generators.
Tired and bedraggled, Grete and I did get up early and go for that run on Paseo del Morro, although I must say that the smell of the feces from the hundreds of cats living next to the trail was a bit much while trying to run fast. After we got cleaned up and ate breakfast, we went to the museum, Casa Blanca.
It is the house that was build for Ponce de Leon. It underwent tons of renovations and expansions over the last 500 years and it was cool to check it all out. We also had the place to ourselves; I’m not sure where all the other tourists were.
Grete had a birthday chat with her folks while the kids had a moment of being best friends for a bit in a secluded park area near the Casa Blanca fountain.
Guavate, the Pork Highway
One of the things I really wanted to do while we were in Puerto Rico this time was to visit the pork highway. It is a long road up the mountain that is lined with dozens of lechoneras.
The plan was to order one meal, share it four ways then move to the next place, etc. I figured we’d get through 4-5 places this way. Nope. Very large servings, the fact that Dublin didn’t seem to be hungry, and Fira not wanting to eat the pig after seeing it on the spit did us in and we only made it to two lechoneras.
Still a great trip and we went ahead and drove past many others just to see what we missed on this trip.
New stuff
So, what new stuff did we get shipped in? Well, first and foremost we got a new Genoa. Our boat had a large (150) Genoa of unknown age and we decided to swap it out since a) it is certainly showing signs of aging and wear, and b) the 150 is far too large for a cruising boat, so we typically had it reefed quite a bit anyway. We have been loving the mainsail we replaced last year, so we ordered the new headsail from Zoom Sails. Below is our new 120 Genoa right after we hoisted it up. The 120, 150, etc. indicated the size of the sail and are essentially, the percentage of square footage of the triangle between the mast and the forestay. So, we stepped down in size quite a bit, but I think it’ll work out so much better in the trade winds we tend to live in.
The sail arrived after we had been here for less than two weeks and we had tons of calm mornings, so we got it swapped out quickly. The old sail has lots of worn spots on the hardware and the UV stripe, and is too large for us to store aboard. Luckily, we found someone on the island who needed a sail so we gave it to them rather than dealing with shipping it to a recycling company, or throwing it in the trash.
We also ordered a bunch of clothes since line drying clothes in the tropics murders basically every kind of fabric. Since we might have a hard time getting shipments for the next 1-2 years, Grete went ahead and ordered all of the schoolbooks and workbooks that the kids will need for the next couple of years as well. Additionally, access to good ship chandleries might prove difficult so we ordered a bunch of spares for both the big boat and the dinghy (the Hoss and Pag).
Pretty sure the parcel carriers hated us though because the boxes tended to look like they were delivered by Jim Carey as Ace Ventura. A couple of things were missing but we got it all resolved, so no loss but still, geez.
Although the materials weren’t new (or unfortunately sufficient :( ), I did manage to get three out of five cockpit cushions covers completed. They turned out a lot better than my other ones, but I’ll have to wait until I can get more material for the remaining two.
Last year when we were here, the town of Salinas had signs on quite a few telephone poles announcing that it was Cocktail Week. After we had been here for a couple of weeks, we laughed about the fact that it is apparently just always Cocktail Week. After a few weeks, when we left, the signage was still going strong. We regretted not grabbing one in the dark of night to decorate our saloon to keep the vibe of Cocktail Week alive. When we got here this year, we no longer saw the signs and we were sad. Then, one day we were running and Grete noticed a single sign remaining on a road into town. We plotted about how/when to come back and steal it. We kept waiting for the perfect conditions, dark night, no people around, etc.
Then, one day I was walking all over town trying to run errands and nothing was going well. No one could fix our tire, no one had the parts I needed, etc. I was walking back to the boat a bit discouraged and saw the sign. I decided to act like I was already its owner and just walked right up to it. After a couple of minutes of nail pulling, the sign was headed back to the Hoss in a shopping bag. Now it’s always Cocktail Week aboard Sea Hoss.
Along with other maintenance tasks, we finally defrosted our fridge for the first time. It’s pretty clear that this needs to happen far more often so now it’s on the schedule to be done at regular intervals. The ice on the back wall of the fridge was about 2 inches thick. It was pretty funny though because the cold air pouring out of the fridge was like a cat AC and Fat Pawsie was all up ons.
Jared Visit
A very good friend of mine from junior high and high school and I fell out of touch over 25 years ago. He joined the Marines, I joined the Navy, we went our separate ways and only managed to cross paths twice and that was very early on. Late last year, he got my email address somehow and reached out. We messaged back and forth for a couple of months and even video chatted back in the spring. Turns out he’s a pilot for UPS now and said he wanted to visit. So, for the last few months we’ve been exchanging plans and he was able to get a shift flying a plane from San Juan back to the mainland US.
So, he came down, hung out on our boat, and we spent two days just talking each other’s ears off. It was great catching up. We went back to the pork highway, now three adults strong and ticked off a few more establishments.
One stop we had to hit on the pork highway was Doctor Lechon. I mean, can’t be bad if he’s a doctor of pig meat.
UPS put Jared up in a nice resort in San Juan the night before his flight, so we went there and hung out. The kids swam in the huge pool, we all walked around the gardens, which included parts of an old fort that looked really cool in the afternoon sun.
We also spent a lot of time just talking in his hotel room where he introduced my kids to hotel room insanity, which I imagine will shape all of the future hotel stays for the Sea Hoss crew. It was great catching up Jared, hopefully we do this much sooner next time.
Fingers and Toes
Ever since I broke my toe in Grenada last November, it has been a bit of an issue, but generally nothing too bad. The nail fell off a few months back in Nevis and a new one has been coming in to replace it. That nail is being faced with strong opposition to the meaty part of my toe that doesn’t seem to think a nail is necessary. So, the toe started getting painful and swollen as the nail dug further and further in and got infected.
I stared soaking my foot and trying to do what I could to help things along. Then I had a hangnail on a finger on my right hand. It didn’t get better and started swelling up. It kept getting bigger and bigger and more and more painful. So I started soaking it as well and trying to keep it under control. After a week or so, it wasn’t getting any better and finally one night it swelled up very large and started turning a greenish-yellow color. I tried to go to sleep but after an hour of laying in bed sweating and writhing in pain, I decided to walk to the ER.
The walk there was rather interesting. It’s about 1.75 miles which is fine, but it was about midnight and there are lots of stray dogs in PR. I wandered across the turf of a pack of strays and they charged me, barking like mad. I raised my hands over my head and ran toward them screaming, a trick that has worked on dogs when I go running for decades. I got past there area and I heard one of the little ones barking from rather far away. When I turned to look, I saw the alpha dog running straight at me not making a sound. I screamed and charged him and he stopped. I carried a large rock from then on until I got to the hospital.
The ER was uneventful, no massive head wounds or missing limbs, no sirens, nothing. I waited an hour or so and then they gave my an antibiotic shot in the butt. Then they pulled up my fingernail and made several small incisions. Next, they squeezed my finger really hard for several minutes to release the pressure. OH MY GOD. It hurt so bad. They bandaged me up and off I went toward home.
I decided not to take the same path since I didn’t want to deal with those dogs again. So I walked an extra half mile or so to a different road. There I met up with a different group of dogs and a very similar stand-off. Long story short, don’t walk around Salinas after dark without bear spray…which we now carry when we walk around.
And that is pretty much it for this trip to PR. We’re just hanging out in Salinas now, waiting for a good weather window to head south for hurricane season. A big part of that waiting has been watching Hurricane Beryl roll through Grenada and the Grenadines, destroying boats, houses, and lives along the way. It has been hard to watch since many of our cruising friends were in the path and many people we’ve met along the way lost their boats in a region that is generally considered safe, during a time of year that is also generally considered safe. So, we are being smart and waiting for the best time frame but also getting a bit antsy about the need to get south to Panama where hurricanes are not a concern. First, we’ll head south to the Dutch islands just off of Venezuala, known as the ABCs (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao).