Here we are in beautiful Puerto Rico.Doing boat things and organising our trip back to Oz in March and working hard as we can to improve our spanish.First word .....manana.....don't do today what you can put off 'til tomorrow.Hence a long time since the last blog.
Meanwhile,back in Georgetown,we spent Christmas day on the beach at a deserted resorty type place with our new Aussie mates Stephen and Jody and Bob,a sort of Bryan Brown lookalike who fitted the Oz theme.The rest of the cruisers were a couple of bays up but by this time we'd had enough of the Georgetown 'organisation.It was a very merry day and we finished up with a game of bolle or two.
Next day looked as good as any to start down the 'thorny path' to the Caribbean.So Boxing morning saw us taking off with Blue Pelican (Stephen and Jody) motoring into the constant easterlies(hence thorny path) up and over Long Island where we managed to have great close hauled sail for the rest of the day and then a night ,a day and another night mostly motoring before we arrived at the Turks and Caicos islands and paid our $100 entry for one week(it was $14 three years ago) and had 2 days,over New years eve in the South Side Marina where Stephen and I played guitar and sang songs til midnight and kept all the other boats up way past cruisers midnight which is officially 9pm.Here's the marina,and the boat coming in is sailed by a couple in their 80's.Figure that gives us another 15 years of this!
We then went out and anchored in Sapodilla Bay until we got another weather window to head to Puerto Rico.Thats us in the distance,behind the wreck.
Just on our week we had 15 to 20knt north easterlies accompanied by 10 ft swells to take us pretty much in a straight line to PR. A bumpy ride but SAILING all the way.A rare treat on this run.Blue Pelican decided to go to the Dominican Republic so I guess they'll catch us up later.On the 3rd day whilst in the middle of the Mona Passage,between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico we came across Roberto single handing his Dream Catcher.We'd been hit by a couple of 35knt squalls a few hours earlier and his dinghy,with outboard motor,had been ripped off his davits and he was towing it upside down with the motor under water.The dinghy was starting to get ripped up so we went over a couple of miles and circled him while he got in the water and hooked it up again.Bit of fun......for him anyway.
Anyway ,next morning we arrived in Mayaguez and cleared in and went round Boqueron,a lovely little place,even if some of the buildings look a bit wobbly!
Nearly finished.......................hang in there.
A few days later we worked our way round to Salinas via Ponce which required leaving a few hours before daylight for each trip in order to make your destination before the winds come up,pretty much 8.30 on the dot every morning.The Ponce to Salinas stretch we actually SAILED......AGAIN!
And here's the beautiful Salinas bay.
Got here on a friday and Saturday night we went into town(village...pueblo)and were hit by a cacophony of salsa,backing tracks with singers and percussionists actually but that's the way of the world,but more to the point,it was the Three Kings celebration and there were 3,000 yes folks 3,000 Purto Rican cowboys on 3,000 horses charging,well trotting really,all over town.Impossible to describe the action .It was amazing and of course I didn't have my camera with me....but Roberto had his Iphone.......but..............
You had to be there!
Well we're just hanging here and we'll do trips around the island which I'm sure you can't wait for (wake up Geoff)...but I forgot our fishing day with our new amigos Carlos and Isabel on their friend Johnny's boat.
It's amazing how squeemish people like us suddenly get overtaken with the bloodlust and just can't catch enough fish!!
Nevertheless,Carlos got the big one and Johnny assured us that Barracuda is OK to eat.Not that we did.
OK I'm off...Thanks for your attention.
We rented a car last week with Bill and Gail,from Another Road,aHylas 46,and went looking for some mineral springs just north of here.They were a bit of a disappointment as they were 'organised' into segregated swimming pools but just up the road Bill spotted his favourite fountain of youth so all was well.After that we drove to the east end of the island and up into the mountains for a spectacular visit to the rain forest.We did the apparently official "challenging " climb to the top and as you can see from the clouds behind us....the view was great.....most of the time.
