We didn’t think Vieques was going to be our destination yesterday. There was no wind and an intermediate harbor on the mainland looked inviting, that is until we got there and realized it held a marina rather than space for anchored boats. Instead, we found ourselves motoring out to the largest of the Spanish Virgin Islands.
The beach where we anchored, Green Beach, was gorgeous and made for some nice swimming yesterday afternoon. Lee and I went for an awesome run on the island’s roads this morning. Then we motored a few miles down the south coast to Sun Bay and the town of Esperenza. It’s raining, of course, and the touristy atmosphere here is a little off-putting.
Green Beach on Punta Arenas.
Worse still, there doesn’t seem to be a decent cafe with internet in this town. A very rude waitress at a restaurant called Belly Buttons kindly informed us (after watching us set up our computers and taking our drink orders) that we had to purchase a meal to use the internet. It’s the middle of the afternoon. We don’t want fried cheese balls we want information! We walked out. Now we’re at the Vieques Trust office using their wifi for a fee.
Monte Piratas!
Tomorrow my dad flies in and we’re off again!
I kept finding myself humming that tune while Lee and I packed our possessions. We employed some of our best problem solving skills to figure out how to get our stuff back to the mainland.
First, there was the question of how exactly to ship everything. I spoke to several international moving companies and the consensus was that our move was too small to be economical for that shipping method. It would have cost at least $2000 for the minimum amount of poundage. After some more research on Lee’s part, the U.S. Postal Service was the obvious solution. Lee found that we could ship some significant-sized boxes parcel post from Puerto Rico, which the Postal Service treats like just another U.S. state as far as rates are concerned. As long as we conformed to some maximum dimensions and kept each box’s weight below 70 pounds we were set.
Next we had to find boxes, not an easy task when you haven’t been collecting them in a garage for years. At least we had a rental car to facilitate our search. We drove to Ponce, explored the loca shopping mall a bit, and then hit up the auto parts store (for oil) and Office Depot to look for boxes. Office Depot had some rather expensive and somewhat small boxes but we left with three of them.
Our most important purchase in Ponce was a dehumidifier from Wal Mart. We want to leave one in the boat while it’s in land storage. Wal Mart was the fourth store we tried for the dehumidifier. Sears had them but they were expensive. K-Mart didn’t have them. Home Depot had them but only on the top shelf on a pallet (One employee there actually let us to the smoke detectors when Lee asked about dehumidifiers. The language barrier wasn’t helping our search).
Back to the boxes. Wal Mart saved the day for those too. We spotted a stack of huge cardboard sheets in a dumpster alongside the store so Lee fished out as many as he could fit in the car. The cardboard sheets were so big he had to fold them several times so they would fit.
Lee and I spent the next several days making, packing, and shipping boxes. We would cram a couple at a time into the car and take them to the Salinas post office. The employees there came to know us as the weird people who kept bringing in huge packages. We brought squares, a long, unruly tube full of windsurfer sails, flat boxes containing bike frames, and some uniquely shaped boxes for the bike wheels. My dad and Peggy are going to get some interesting mail in a couple of weeks.
Getting the boxes off the boat was probably the most challenging part. Lee had to detach the lifelines so he could heave his 70-pound-pushing monster box off the deck and into the dinghy. Thankfully nothing went overboard!
Our second challenge for the week has been surviving the torrential rain. Apparently Salinas is usually dry, sunny, and breezy but we’ve had nothing but wet, stagnant weather since we’ve been here. The rain comes in buckets and traps us wherever we happen to be, whether that’s on the boat or in the bakery using the internet. The weather hasn’t helped our box-building enterprise and I go stir crazy when I’m stuck on the boat with all the hatches closed because of the rain. There isn’t enough air in there!
We made ourselves take a day off on Thursday to drive to the mountains. We took a windy road up into the rainforest to the scenic mountain route that runs from East to West down the center of the island. The forest was beautiful! I have never seen to many exotic plants and so much green! We stopped at a recreation area that I’d read about in a guidebook. According to the book, this area has a swimming pool in the rainforest. We found the trail that led to the pool and set off for a swim. To our disappointment, the pool was empty. It was a huge pool fed by a natural stream but the stream had been diverted around it and leaves were collecting in the pool instead.
We continued down the path, past quite a few picturesque campsites with covered picnic tables, and into the forest. The bird sounds were beautiful and it was a hiking experience unlike any I’ve ever had. Of course, when we were nice and far away from our car it started pouring rain. Thick tree foliage and a picnic table cover gave us some shelter but we got impatient and slopped the rest of the way to the car. We were both soaking wet for the rest of our drive, which included a stop to bug a bag of mangoes and getting lost in the highest town in PR.
After an epic battle with the rain yesterday while we tried frantically to accomplish everything we needed to with the rental car, we are relaxing a bit today. It looks like we’ll leave tomorrow for Vieques, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands off the east end of PR. We are meeting my dad there on Wednesday and he’s sailing with us to St. Martin.
Puerto Rico has been fun but I’m ready to go.
Salinas is…interesting. Like all cruiser stronghold’s we’ve visited, it has it’s popular cafe where everyone goes for internet and refreshments. It has local characters, a crowded dinghy dock, and a colorful surrounding neighborhood. So far, my favorite thing about this place is the wandering animals. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of these animals, as I haven’t been carrying my camera around. The streets in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are alive with strays of all kinds. Most of them are mangy dogs or boney cats. In Salinas, I’ve seen some heartbreakingly cute puppies following their mothers around the neighborhood. I (almost)wanted to take them home with me!
Salinas harbor. There’s usually a huge black bird on that blue boat’s mast but he
happened to be gone when I took this.
Puerto Rico has added a new kind of stray to the usual animal assortment we see in the streets. Lee and I were walking back to the marina from town yesterday when we encountered two horses grazing along the sidewalk in front of us. No joke. There were horses in the street. They were munching happily, oblivious to the passing traffic and to Lee and me on the sidewalk. They looked like someone had been taking care of them but there were no pastures or barns to be seen.
We also saw a couple of teenage guys riding feisty little horses bareback in the same area. They were hanging out in the park with their horses like American teenagers would with bicycles. We saw the same thing in Boqueron, come to think of it. A young guy rode his little palomino to the beach. All the horses down here seem to be on the small side. They look like I imagine the conquistadors horses looked.
Today, we were driving our rental car down the horse street when the same herd plus 2 (for a total of 4 horses) game sauntering down the pavement. ?!?!?!
Whose horses are these and why are they wandering around town alone? They’re so small I could almost fit one on the boat…
My second favorite thing about Salinas is the giant grocery store, Selectos, that we patronized today. Among other things, I purchased a box of very enticing cereal.
Who can resist churros? Why don’t they have this in the US? I normally try to stay away from sugary cereals but, seriously, how could I pass this up? I learned about the history of churros from the back of the box. Apparently they were invented by shepherds, not amusement park vendors.
I can’t wait to dig into a bowl of Mini Cinnamon Churros with ice-cold milk. Oh wait, our refrigeration is broken again, maybe for good this time. We’re making due with ice for now but Lee is going to give the old fridge another try in a few days. Sometimes it just wants a little break.
Lee and I make such a great team.
We certainly have our moments, as a couple, when communication breaks down and things get rough. That never seems to happen when we’re sailing. I don’t know if we’re just lucky or if spending a large part of our formative years together on the boat has made us work together by necessity.
Whenever we’re getting Pirat ready to sail, anchoring in a new harbor, or tying in a reef, I feel like I’m part of a precise and coordinated unit. Lee hauls one thing. I release another. He readies the anchor while I pick out a spot from the helm. We each recognize the other’s special skills. I know that Lee has the finesse to nestle the anchor into the perfect bed of sand and he knows that I can maneuver Pirat under sail like I would a dinghy on a starting line.
Sailing in and out of anchor, something we’ve been doing more and more recently, is so satisfying and so much fun because Lee and I seem to pull it off so well together. Things do occasionally go wrong and I’m sure they will go more wrong some day. For now, though, I can’t help but love sailing the boat up to the perfect spot as Lee signals from the bow, slowing and stopping into the wind, and then sliding backwards when Lee has the anchor where he wants it.
It’s too bad Salinas wasn’t one of those harbors we can sail into. The wind was dead and the heat and humidity were stifling when we pulled in here this afternoon. It was eerily silent and calm in the harbor crowded with semi-derelict sailboats. We didn’t waste much time going ashore to find internet once we were anchored. Now this air-conditioned bakery with free wifi feels pretty nice and I’m not sure I want to leave.
It’s hot. I’ve been hot before. Chesapeake bay was hotter than I this, mostly because it was unbearably still and windless. The south coast of Puerto Rico seems to be experiencing an atypical lack of trade winds just in time for our journey East. The resulting high temperatures are starting to get to me. I’m always sweaty and sticky. The deck burns my feet and the inside of the boat becomes unbearably hot and stuffy when we have to close the forward hatch to put the dinghy on deck.
Lee and I did finally procure fresh water in Boqueron. We just filled our 5 gallon collapsable jug, dromedaries, and sun shower at the local marina. A fresh water sun shower felt so, so good after so many days of sweat and saltwater. I was starting to feel like a pickle and even my inch-long hair was getting grungy. Three anchorages later, we just filled Pirat’s water tanks at the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club. Ponce is the big city on Puerto Rico’s south coast. We’re anchored here for the night but we probably won’t explore the city until we get to Salinas and rent a car.
Old machinery in Ensenada. It was already hot when we left at 9am.
It had already cooled off a bit by the time we moved from the fuel dock to anchor this afternoon. We experimented with a tarp canopy, then retreated down below to use our computers with the free wifi we somehow get here. The clouds that had been looming over the island all day slid out over the water and brought rain in gradually increasing amounts. When it was finally pouring, Lee and I went up on deck in our swimsuits to clean up and cool off. The gusty downpour blasted our greasy bodies with cold droplets. It took a while to get soaked but it was the best shower of my life.
We’re not really sure what to do next. The wind prognosis for the rest of the week isn’t great. We’d like to get to Salinas, which we’ve read is a good harbor in which to leave your boat while traveling the island.
I just want some ice cream and a massage.
At the fuel dock in Ponce.
All clean! We gave Pirat a good scrub in ocean world.
Last Tuesday evening, after another long check-out process with Ocean World, Lee and I set out for our longest passage yet. We were prepared for the worst, even though the forecast gave us no reason fear. We had about 260 nautical miles to go to reach the east end of Hispaniola, cross the Mona passage, and reach Puerto Rico. Lee plotted a course to play the predicted northeasterly wind shift and skirt north of the thunderstorms that supposedly blow off Puerto Rico into the Mona.
Two days and two nights later, we were anchored safely in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. The sail took almost exactly 48 hours. We sailed out away from the DR, tacked, and then sailed all the way to Puerto Rico on one tack. We reefed, unreefed, changed headsails, and adjusted our course to the subtly shifting wind. It seems so easy in retrospect and things certainly could have been much, much more difficult. We never saw more than 20 knots of wind and didn’t encounter any of the horrors the Mona passage was reputed to involve.
Staying awake was by far the biggest challenge. One night of 3-hours watches just about does us in as far as energy goes. By Wednesday morning I was stumbling around the boat like a drunken monkey. I tend to forget how to walk when we go on these longer sails. I clamber around on all fours and lack the energy to stand on the pitching boat for long.
By night two Lee and I were both completely exhausted. Lee woke me up half an hour early for my first watch because he couldn’t keep his eyes open any more. That was fine. I was rested for the moment and managed to stay awake for 3 hours. I listened to my ipod (watches would be murder without it!) and drank green tea. When Lee woke me up for my second shift, though, I just couldn’t drag myself up. He said he couldn’t stay awake any longer, to which I replied that I wasn’t actually awake. Wonderful husband that he is, Lee gave me another hour of sleep while he caught 15 minutes of rest at a time, waking up to an alarm and checking things on deck. When he woke me next, I was ready to go and finished the night on deck for a beautiful sunrise.
The wind actually calmed as we crossed the Mona during day two. Lee had swapped the solent out for the working jib the night before and we made good time under plenty of sail on the approach to a new coast.
I think I slept for almost 12 hours our first night in Mayaguez. It wasn’t a beautiful port. The coastline was industrial and we were the only boat anchored there. I tried to call customs to check us in when we arrived Thursday evening but the office closed at 4 and I shuffled among several phone numbers to find the right office. We didn’t formally check in till Friday morning, when a customs officer took our information over the phone and directed us to a nearby pier to finish the process with a local office. Once we actually found the customs and immigration office on the Mayaguez waterfront, we paid our $27.50 fee for not having a decal that we could have bought back in the U.S.. The officer was very nice and told us how to get the decal so we won’t be charged again if we ever return to P.R. or the mainland U.S..
As usual, our adventures in Mayaguez involved searching for internet, sampling the local grocery stores, and running in a neighborhood where I’m sure no one runs, let alone blond caucasians. We finally found wifi at the local mini-mall/grocery store/movie theater/food court complex. The local high school ,or maybe college, students were hanging out in the food court there.
We have BBQ’d for dinner for the past two nights, which means Lee has done most of the work. Chayote squash is delicious cooked on the charcoal grill. The plantain we threw on last night was so melt-in-your-mouth good I could have cried. All the produce we bought on our last shopping trip in the DR was fabulous, actually. I’ve been frantically eating huge, ripe papayas interspersed with cantaloupe, pineapple, and the absolute best mangos I’ve ever tasted.
Wing n’ wing into Boqueron.
This morning we sailed down the coast a few miles to Boqueron. It was a peaceful, relaxing sail over flat water in light wind. Boqueron is apparently some kind of college spring break party town. We’re sitting in a noisy bar full of half-clad women right now. The palm tree-lined beach looks like the place to be. For now, we need to find water so we can actually take fresh water showers. Tomorrow, we may move on to the next place to play on the party beach for the day.
The beach in Boqueron.
This post is a bit behind but an updated one will follow shortly!
Approaching Ocean World. It needs that enormous breakwater to keep out the giant waves!
What a difference a few miles down the coast make. Three hours of early morning motoring brought us to Ocean World Marina, just West of Puerto Plata, in the Dominican Republic. Before leaving Luperon, we had to check out with the Navy (and theoretically Customs, but they let us off easy). That was a two-hour saga of disorganized bureaucracy, lots of waiting, and plenty of difficulty communicating. I did some provisioning in town wile Lee waiting with a uniformed navy officer for another man to get off his cell phone so the 3 of them could go out to Pirat for a mandatory check. The guy they were waiting for wandered in and out of town, talked on his phone, hung out with his friends, and just blew off the task at hand.
We had already waited almost an hour up at the navy building while people tried to fill out our paperwork and find the right person to stamp and sign the forms. It was comical and frustrating. Lee and the officials still hadn’t gone out to the boat when I returned with my groceries. I ended up waiting on the dock while the three of them went out in our dinghy since four people seemed like too many.
Get us out of here! Lee rowed back to the boat when we returned from Santiago. We had left the dinghy sans engine so as not to tempt thieves.
That was the last straw for us when it came to Luperon. Between the dirty water, bizarre atmosphere in town, difficulty accomplishing anything, and abundance of cruisers we could not relate to, we’d had enough. Our cruising friends seemed the feel the same way. They left that night for Samana and we left our mooring at daylight the next morning.
Thus began our first experience “playing the night lee†as our favorite cruising guidebook likes to say. The idea is that the howling 20+ knot trade winds subside at night in Hispaniola’s shadow. This calm period generally starts sometime from sunset to midnight and ends around 9am (from our observations in Luperon). We left there around 6am for the 15 mile trip East to Ocean World Marina. Lee expected a little wind that might allow us to sail close hauled but there was nothing. We motored through choppy swells that instantly sent me below to sleep off my seasickness for the rest of the trip.
It’s a good thing we tried that little hop in the night lee because we found out we don’t like sailing like that, mostly because it’s not sailing. It isn’t arrogance or inexperience that makes Lee and I think we can beat into the trades down the north coast of the DR – it’s practicality and desire for enjoyment. Why would we want to waste diesel motoring through the chop when we and our boat are perfectly capable of sailing? Sure, to sail this coast we’d make long tacks offshore to find some calmer conditions but that’s a whole lot better than going a shorter distance with nothing but the roar of the engine and the deafening bang of our hull slamming down onto waves.
Okay, that’s the end of my sailing rant…for now. The conclusion, for Lee and I, is that we’d rather seek out conditions we enjoy and sail instead of motoring like frightened puppies (sorry, I said I was done ranting). Another conclusions we’ve come to in recent weeks, is that we really like the rhythm of long passages followed by longish layovers in a place until we’re ready to move on. As painful as it seemed at first, the overnight sails from Rum Cay and Mayaguana were actually kinda nice. They were certainly satisfying and I’m proud of all the miles we put under our keel. Those passages made Luperon seem like paradise for a while and made it much easier to leave since we’d had our fill of the place after a week.
Now we’re plotting the leg to Puerto Rico. At first we though we’d hop down the coast to Samana from here after a couple nights at Ocean World. Then Lee thought he spotted a weather window that could take us all the way to Puerto Rico from here. It would at least make the Mona passage (an infamous jump between the DR and PR) doable. We also found we needed more time in the marina to accomplish everything we wanted to do here. There’s laundry, scrubbing the deck, generally washing everything we can on the boat, fixing the dinghy, making phone calls, provisioning in Puerto Plata…the list could go on for much longer.
Here we are spending a third night at Ocean World. It’s an odd place with an aquarium/dolphin show, water park type thing, casino, restaurant, and gigantic mega-yacht marina. At first it looked like the place might be deserted but there are actually a few people at the aquarium and the casino-front pool. In our part of the marina, there are a few other sailboats. A group of three Dutch boats is on their way North. Lee and I have been alternating periods of hard work with time glued to our computers in the lobby of the marina office (the wifi isn’t working on the docks).
Papaya with lime juice and plain yogurt, my sultry new obsession.
Right now it looks like we’ll leave today for Puerto Rico. The Mona passage awaits. The trade winds and seas are ready to prove us wrong about sailing this coast but we are hoping for a couple days of good sailing. My fruit supply is replenished with mangoes, papayas, bananas, plantains, some tropical fruit that starts with “zâ€, a pineapple, and a cantaloupe. I have vegetables like chayote, broccoli, carrots, radishes, and peppers are stashed away too. Pirat is spic and span, tightened down, lubed up, and ready to go!
Carnival mask in the Museo Folklorico.
Everything about Santiago was frenzied. Hopping from one cramped form of public transportation to another, finding a hotel, walking down the street. I guess the only thing that went down at a relaxed pace was our communication. People speak to us, we look at each other, say a few words of bewildered English/Spanish/French back, and then stand dumbfounded when our assailant dishes out more unintelligible words. I feel so stupid in this place where I can’t talk to anyone!
We survived a night in Santiago. I held off the hungry beggars by giving them my leftovers from dinner last night (I didn’t want them anyway). We didn’t get lost. We got on all the right buses and taxis. We tried really, really hard not to get ripped off for too much but I think it was inevitable. There was a giant hardware store, a Wal-Mart like super grocery/everything store, and lots of street vendors.
We saw a fair amount of historical things thanks to an unsolicited tour guide. My favorite thing, by far, was the street market. I have never seen so many fresh fruits and vegetables in my life. There were plantains piled like snowdrifts along the street and the mangoes were so ripe and perfect that I could smell them. The root vegetables smells like dirt and the stacks of fresh ginger added their spicy aroma to the mix. I wanted one or two of everything! I can’t imagine what farms in the cordillera central look like. It must be a vegetable garden of eden.
Now it’s time to figure out how to get out of Luperon. The trade winds are blowing strong against our direction of travel. The harbors along the rest of the North coast are supposedly much less comfy than Luperon. It’s going to take some nighttime traveling in the calm Hispaniola creates at night to get to the East end of the island. From there we have the dreaded Mona passage to defeat. I think we can do it, though. At least we’re still ahead of schedule at this point.
The local scenery.
The Dominican Republic may have caught Lee and I a little off-guard but I’m happy to say that things do get easier. They get so easy, apparently, that many sailors set up residence here. They stay for a hurricane season that lasts years instead of months. We have no intention of staying here that long but we are adjusting to life in this mind bogglingly loud, lively, dirty, colorful country.
I have found my favorite mini-market and the one-handed proprietor knows me by sight and first name now, even though neither of us speaks the other’s language. The other day I bought a bag full of bananas, a pineapple, and a green spiky mystery fruit (I later learned it was a soursop) from him for a ridiculously small amount of pesos. I returned to his replenished produce table for a chayote squash, iceberg lettuce, two monster carrots, and two beautiful eggplant (all for less than $2).
Tuesday morning’s produce market in the street was pure heaven. We were there a little late so I think some things were already gone. Still, there were chayote, beautiful tomatoes, broccoli, fresh herbs, pumpkins, peppers of various kinds, potatoes, shallots, pineapple, yams, beets, lettuce, and okra. My eyes glazed over as I started filling my bags. I wish I’d bought some of everything but that would have been too much to carry. The chayote, I think, is my favorite.
Easter weekend celebrations are over now but they were certainly wild while they lasted. We joined the party on the beach (La Playa Grande) on Saturday night. Dozens of little tents and tarp canopies covered bars, each of which had a sound system blaring music as loudly as possible. Plastic tables and chairs surrounded each tent bar to roughly the radius of the music’s reach, then rant into another tent bar’s area. Most bar’s were also equipped with barbecues and they churned out a surprising number of bunless hot dogs. People were eating the hot dogs on sticks with strips of condiments squeezed along the length of the dog.
People of all ages milled about this beach party, eventually taking to the dance floor for some raucous merengue. I couldn’t get any closer to dancing than 5 feet from the covered stage. The music (live and then recorded) was so incredibly loud that it hurt my brain. When we weren’t wandering aimlessly, Lee and I sat at one of the quieter tables with our sailing friends and tried to talk over the music. This was definitely unlike any Easter celebration I’ve ever experienced.
The town was quitter on Sunday. Lee and I went on a morning run near the beach from the night before. We made a brief visit to the weekly swap meet at a local hangout. There, we met a resident/cruising woman selling notecards who shared lots of useful information about the area. I was happy to find someone to ask about getting fresh eggs and she was happy to tell me that the bakery, a yellow storefront with no sign, has the freshest eggs (none of which come refrigerated here). She hooked Lee up with someone who could rent us a motorcycle and said she would take the few remaining thank you cards I needed to mail to a guy who is going back to the states on Wednesday. I guess that’s the best way to send mail to the U.S. from here.
After that productive venture, we spent the rest of the day sweating on the boat. Lee worked on his projects while I baked flatbread, read, and tried to find the least hot place on the boat. It was a scorcher. Today is much cooler as the wind is blowing 20 knots in the harbor. Still, I was burning up in the morning sun doing yoga this morning. That was before the wind started blowing.
We finished checking in with the rest of the Dominican officials this morning. Immigration, agriculture, and the Navy all filled out paperwork about is and then took our money. None of the officials spoke much English but we had much better luck communicating than we had with the customs officer on Friday. We got off the hook on having Navy officers about our boat because apparently the right person wasn’t around. After shuffling through the bureaucracy, we got a local sim card for our Blackberry, yet another challenge to our communication skills.
Our guide, Anthony, me and Lee.
After the produce market yesterday morning we went on a great waterfall adventure involving local transportation, climbing, swimming, sliding, and jumping. We took a taxi to the nearby town of Imbert. This taxi crammed 4 people in the backseat and two (Lee and me), in the front. From Imbert we jumped on with a couple of motoconchos to ride the last few miles to the waterfall park. At the park, we donned lifejackets and helmets and a guide named Anthony wearing rainbow knee socks took us to the 7th level of waterfalls. There are 27 levels in total but we opted for the shorter tour.
Me jumping into a pool.
The waterfalls were nothing short of amazing. We hiked for 15 minutes or so to the first one, where we started swimming and climbing our way up. The water was cool and clear and the falls wound their way through glass-smooth rock walls. When we reached the top of our journey it was time to slide! The rocks acted like natural water slides on the way down. In a few instances, we jumped from higher than I’ve ever thought of jumping into deeps pools. Our guide took gratuitous pictures with our waterproof camera the whole way so we have plenty of documentation. After lunch at the park, we made our way back to Luperon on foot and in another crammed cab.
Today we are venturing even farther into this wild country. We plan to take the bus to Santiago (the second largest city in the DR) for some exploring. We’ll spend the night there and come back to Luperon tomorrow. I can’t wait to see the big city!
Follow us, a wandering family with a sense of adventure.