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Updated May 4, 2011 |
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On our last day in Salinas we had a visit from a nice young Dutch couple, Lennart and Nina, who had recently bought a boat and were spending a year cruising in the Caribbean and (eventually) the US before sailing her back to Europe.
Barbara was able to help them by mending an inherited Dutch ensign that was important to them -- a good reason to have a sewing machine aboard.
We went to Drake's for a last night and a final email check. As it happened there was such a swarm of termites that Luis turned the lights out in an attempt to encourage them to go elsewhere.Good-byes were said and as usual we had mixed emotions. We were sorry to leave but glad to be heading on to see other old friends. We got up early and hoisted the outboard and dinghy at first light. We wanted to get fuel and fill our water tanks at the marina, and since the fuel dock is in a tight place we wanted to get in and out before the trade winds started up in earnest. |
At the Fuel Dock in Salinas |
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| We had no trouble getting in, and at 8:00 our friend Miguel showed up to turn the fuel on for us. Barbara went off to the panaderia for one more loaf of their good bread while I pumped fuel and filled the water tanks. Unfortunately, the fuel stopped flowing after we had taken on only 65 gallons -- the marina was out of diesel! Except for the water, it was hardly worth the effort to get into the fuel dock. |
Entering the Harbor at Ponce |
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To get out we swung the boat around with a spring line and backed out cautiously, but it was no real problem, and by 9:00 we were on our way and by 9:20 clear of Salinas harbor.
With no fuel at Salinas we would have to stop in Ponce, but we had no desire to spend the night there, as it is noisy and crowded, so we anchored behind Caja de Muertos again, with the idea of getting another early start. |
Boqueron Bay |
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We wanted to be in at the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club fuel dock as it opened
because it was still a fair distance to Boqueron. This plan had, of course, the additional benefit of another afternoon and evening in the clear quiet water of Caja de Muertos.
While in Salinas I did manage to get the guest cabin put together, although the trim is not yet done, and our friend Marianne Pfeiffer (Tradewinds Sails & Canvas) did a beautiful job on the cushions. The berths are ample in size and very comfortable. They are actually a blue-green, although the color does not look right in the photo. |
The Forward (Guest) Cabin |
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As we headed into Ponce on a sweet misty morning, Barbara again saw a school of flying fish.
We were alongside by 8:15 and underway again at 9:20, having filled our tanks. We headed west,
passing the Guanica sea buoy and eventually fetched the light on Cabo Rojo and turned the corner to head north
toward Boqueron Bay. It was a relaxed and pleasant trip, running with a long easy swell.
We anchored in Boqueron at about 3:30 and when we went ashore we met all our old friends sitting at Sunset-Sunrise or Schamar and looking as though they had never moved. There was a lot of catching up to do, and we fell easily into the old Boqueron routine: jumping over the side first thing in the morning, walking up the hill to the post office for mail and to the bakery for fresh bread, and going ashore to the dinghy dock for the pre-sunset gathering. We began to meet new people, too, some of them sailors and others locals whom we had maybe known by sight but had never met. Our friend Stan maintains that on the first visit to any harbor one may make friends, but one is still an outsider. The second visit cements friendships and one begins to be accepted, and by the third visit one is a local, a "belonger." |
Palm Flowers |
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We met a very pleasant young Swiss couple, Peter and Monika, who had sailed their 45-foot steel sloop from Brazil with their
11-year-old daughter Claudia. We visited back and forth before they had to leave, and as they were sailing east toward Salinas
and Culebra we were able to give them some pointers about the route -- how to avoid most of the contrary current, for example,
or where to anchor in Salinas. We'll try to see them again at their house in the South of France.
We also met an English couple, Peter and Sharon, who were minding a boat for the absent owner. Peter is an ex-paratrooper and SAS (British Special Forces) member, and they have been sailing around the Caribbean |
Stanley and Lizette at Ita's Party | |||
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and South America in their own boat
for eleven years, but were headed home to swallow the anchor and switch to a life ashore.
A few days after we arrived, our friend Ita gave a party where we caught up with Kathleen and John again and enjoyed John's homemade sausages. One afternoon we heard a great thundering of motorcycle engines, and when we went aqshore we found that Boqueron had been invaded by a very large group of bikers |
The Latin American Motorcycle Club Visits Boqueron | |||
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from all over the Americas. There was a lot of gray hair in the group, and except for their exhausts they were very quiet and peaceful. Someone made a speech and there was a performance by a band and dance group that we had front-row seats for at Sunset-Sunrise. Eventually they all got back on their bikes and rode off to Ponce, where they were
staying.
One interesting person we met is Kamo, a French-Canadian fisherman-turned-artist who had built his own 20-foot sloop and sailed her from Canada to Boqueron by way of the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. We liked his work and asked him to paint a picture of Barbara for us. |
The Morning "Crowd" at Schamar | |||
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Sunset Behind Kamo's Little Boat | ||||
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Easter weekend came, a time when half the population of San Juan descends on Boqueron and turns it into a madhouse.
We stayed on the boat for the most part, but the evening of Good Friday we went ashore for a meal at a little restaurant called "The Sandbox." The meal was good, but the highlight of the evening was a passion play being enacted in a little plaza across from the restaurant. Most of the actors seemed to be school children, and they were accompanied by a band on a flat-bed trailer truck. It was not advertised and was all completely un-commercial and very charming.
Barbara was interested in the little Catholic church we pass on the way to the post office and decided to attend a service. Because Boqueron is so small, however, the church is actually a satellite of a parish in Cabo Rojo, and services are held at strange times. So it was on the Saturday before Palm Sunday that Barbara rowed ashore for a 5:00 service. After the service she asked if the parish would like her to play flute during another service (the church has no real choir or other formal music arrangement) and the upshot was that she wound up playing at the evening service on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter). It was such a success that she has now become a fixture and will play every week until we leave. |
Boqueron, Sleepy in the Morning | |||
| It was on Palm Sunday, however, that a real disaster struck. Our good friend Carl, an ex-fisherman and merchant seaman and a professional musician, lived on a small sailboat and the boat sank unexpectedly in the afternoon chop, with all his possesions aboard. Since he was now homeless we invited him to stay with us, christening our newly installed guest cabin, and the next day we moved the boat to a position over Carl's |
Boqueron Harbor | |||
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boat and Barbara became a salvage platform for the next week, her after deck crowded with dive gear and flotation barrels.
Many friends pitched in to help; Clarence and Heidi came over from Puerto Real, but the real stalwarts of the salvage operation were Rodney and René and Barbara. It was a week before the boat was raised by tying barrels under her and filling them with air. Once the coamings were out of the water we could start pumping with a gasoline-powered 2" pump and an electric submersible. |
Approaching Thunderstorm | |||
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We found, however, that there was underwater damage from the bow resting on a rock, so we towed her ashore to the beach with Carl's yola pushing and our dinghy pulling. There a crew was able to clean the boat out, salvage what could be saved, and dispose of a lot of accumulated junk.
Situations like this have a way of clarifying priorities, and one good result was a much closer friendship with Rodney and his friend Coochie, and a new friendship with José, the retired master of a biological research vessel. |
Barbara Rowing to Church | |||
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José, with his vast experience, and I became de facto directors of the operation, and after a certiain amount of thrashing around at the beginning, things proceeded in a purposeful way until the boat was raised.
The whole crew worked tirelessly; Rodney (our only SCUBA diver) moved heaven and earth to get more air on weekends, when the gas-powered pump choked René took it home and rebuilt it overnight, and Barbara could not be kept away from the action. |
Sunday Afternoon at the Dinghy Dock | |||
| With the boat on the beach our lives (and Barbara) began to return to normal. Carl still had work to do, of course, but most of our direct involvement was over. One day Dmitri, a young Belgian who had built his 21-foot boat himself and sailed her acros the Atlantic and all over the Caribbean, volunteered to fasten a patch over the holes, and the patch helped some, but unfortunately not enough. At "press time" the boat is still on the beach, but a plan has been formed to tow her to Puerto Real where she can be hauled out. |
Lively Sunday Street Scene | |||
| We are beginning to get the boat ready to travel, stowing gear where it belongs and generally straightening up. Meanwhile, porpoises have begun to show up in the mornings, circling the boat and apparently feeding on the fish hiding in her shadow, reminding us that we should see many more on our trip north to Bermuda. |
Carl's Boat on the Bottom | |||
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Divers Working to Attach Barrels to the Boat (BNP Photo) | ||||
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Off the Bottom, but Still Swamped | ||||
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Old Heads -- José and Michael Considering the Next Step (BNP Photo) | ||||
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Afloat, Rodney and Rene Posing | ||||
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Rodney and Barbara | ||||
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Carl Looking Happier (BNP Photo) | ||||
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The Yola Gaviota | ||||
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Looking Out From "La Marea" | ||||