Position 18° 04.718’ N
65° 47.797’ W
Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico
View Larger Map
 |
| Lavinia, Bill & Ann |
We agreed to share the cost of a rental car
for a few days with our friends and traveling companions Bill and Ann from
‘Ann Louise’ their 48’ Kadey Krogen. Our first outing was to Old San Juan, we
had decided to see the Spanish built forts that surround the old city as well
as to take in the town and sample some of the local cuisine. From Salinas to
Old San Juan, highway 52 would take us straight there. Immediately we were
outside the small township of Salinas it became apparent that we were in the
United States, all the familiar franchises and stores are present here. The
‘Mall’ concept is also here, and as in the US, every few miles there is another
shopping mall! The main difference in PR is that the first language is Spanish
although most people we encountered spoke very good English and the lifestyle
here is definitely Latin; the culture predominates through the music and
traditions. The wealth of the United States is not here, from the roads and basic infrastructure which
are in need of repair to the more modest homes it is evident that life is
different. As we drove north one could see people sitting in the front of their
homes talking and just congregating, not a sight seen in the US, there is
obviously poverty here. To contradict the last sentence every shopping mall we
stopped at was full! We had the utmost difficulty finding an empty parking space,
so there is obviously enough of the population with disposable incomes to be
able to support the malls. Even so it certainly didn’t look like there was from
what we were seeing along the route. When we arrived in Old San Juan our route
took us past the cruise ship docking area and low and behold ‘Regatta’ the
cruise ship that Lavinia and I had cruised on twice was in port. We both loved
the ship and the cruise line Oceania and would recommend it to anyone. Once in
the city we easily found a central parking area which put us within walking
distance of everything. The oldest parts of the district of Old San Juan remain partly enclosed by massive walls. Several defensive structures and notable forts, such as the emblematic Fort San Felipe del Morro, Fort San Cristóbal, and El Palacio de Santa Catalina, also known as La Fortaleza, acted as the primary defenses of the settlement which over time was subjected to numerous attacks. La Fortaleza continues to serve also as the executive mansion for the Governor of Puerto Rico. Many of the historic fortifications are part of San Juan National Historic Site. The construction, considering the lack of heavy motorized equipment is literally awesome. It is hard to imagine the engineering feat of moving the large stones and building materials the Spaniards used to build these fortifications and the city walls. Old San Juan is an Island and was completely surrounded by walls and forts. Much of the fortification has survived and in part has been renovated. Of particular note to me was that the Spanish realized the importance of a good and clean water supply so in the bowels of the forts cisterns were constructed and the whole structure was built in such a way that rain water was collected and directed to the cisterns. No animals were allowed in the forts thus ensuring that the water did not become contaminated. The view from the battlements was incredible and as we all stood there overlooking the harbour and the Atlantic Ocean one couldn’t help but imagine the days when a sentry on duty called out that the enemy fleet was sighted approaching the harbor! The old city itself is abound with cobbled streets and oozes history, some of the architecture is modern but most of the fascias and facades have been preserved although behind many of them modernization has taken place. The city is bustling, alive with restaurants and shops, street vendors are plentiful and pleasantly were not ‘pushy’. All the local people we asked directions and advice from were warm, friendly and just plain helpful. We enjoyed our visit and would recommend Old San Juan as a must see…
In Lavinia and my opinion the Puerto Rican food leaves a little to be desired. We found the taste a little ‘samey’ and bland. One of the much spoken about dishes ‘Mofungo’, plantains and garlic, we thought was overrated. We did try it twice in two different places, our opinion unfortunately didn’t change. We loved the word however. During conversations the subject of dog ownership had come up, I would love to have a dog although on board, for us, we think it would be restrictive. I think, prompted by these conversations, Bill and Ann bought me a small stuffed dog with a collar they made naming him, yes; you guessed it, ‘Mofungo’. He now sits next to ‘Moose’ (presented to me by my three Norwegian grandchildren) in my pilothouse.
The next day we used the car to drive to
Ponce on the South coast and visited the art museum there, we also walked the
central city square to sample the ‘life’ of Ponce. This was another full and
interesting day. When we returned to Salinas we all agreed that a visit to John
Batista’s waterfront cruiser bar, which is the local hangout, was in order. A round
of Medalla’s, the local brew, were quickly downed followed by an encore. We
slept well that night…Salinas is a well protected anchorage with no surge and very little wind; the water is typical of a mangrove area and is cloudy although clean. A word of warning to boaters who follow us here, the barnacles do grow and a layer of green slim will appear around your waterline! We left our dinghy in the water for a week and had to scrape the bottom and polish it to get rid of the tiny barnacles which had adhered themselves to both to the fiberglass and the Hypalon® of our RIB. We had a diver clean ‘Partners’ while we were at our next stop of Palmas del Mar.
While we were in Salinas ‘Hobo’ another 42’ Kadey Krogen came into the anchorage. Larry and Lena had been in the Caribbean for several years and were on their way back to the US. They had crossed from Culebra; we cruised over in our dinghy to say hi and were invited on board for cocktail hour later. We had a Kadey Krogen convention on ‘Hobo’ that evening. It was very informative to listen to Larry and Lena’s experiences. They had spent six months in Trinidad where they had ‘Hobo’s’ hull painted and her superstructure re-gel coated plus other jobs. Larry was kind enough to share the names of all his contractors so that if we decided to have some work done on 'Partners' we would know who we could trust. Isn’t the Krogen family great!
During our stay in Salinas we had the opportunity to met up with some friends of friends of ours back in Sarasota who had lived in Puerto Rico some years ago. Bonny and Roberto who live in Humacao, where great and were kind enough to introduce us to the 'real' Puerto Rico. We travelled all over the eastern end of the island and sampled the local cuisine and saw some 'out of the way' places that we would otherwise have never encountered. One of these places was the mountain top bar which could only be reached using 4 wheel drive. As you can see from the pictures the army where there too teaching there new recruites how to drive up a steep rocky road!
Salinas was where we parted company with ‘Ann
Louise’, they were going to stay in Salinas longer and we needed to get to a
marina where we could get some work done. On the evening of April 14th we staged ourselves just outside the harbor area so that we could leave easily
at 01:00 the next day for our 35 nm trip to Palmas del Mar. All started well
until Stonewall Jackson quite again…more air in the engine fuel filters. Where
is it coming from, both of us are really getting fed up with this problem, the
engine runs perfectly in between the periodic stops so we know the problem is
only the ingress of air into the fuel system, but where is the leak? We made it,
in less than ideal conditions, to Palmas and were safely tied up in slip B37 by
09:00.
Our stay in Palmas del Mar was great the
staff and facility were wonderful the only drawback is the remoteness; one does
need a car to go anywhere. We did rent a small car for two days so we could do
some essential shopping and sightseeing. HT lost another pair of glasses to
‘Davey Jones’s locker’ so we had to find an optician where we could get a new
pair made in a day. So, the first day was a shopping day and the second a fun
day which took in a trip to Fajardo which is on the northeast coast of PR and
is a ‘big’ boating area. We stopped at West Marine there to buy one or two
items that we needed and then visited Marina Del Rey which is the biggest
marina in the Caribbean with a 1,000 slips. While we were there the marina
office recommended a ‘rigger’ to me that would be able to install the
additional hoist we had bought to solve the difficulties of lowering and
raising our dinghy. From here we drove to El Yunque which is the only natural
rain forest in the whole of the United States. We drove to the welcome centre
and collected all the information for our visit. We then drove and walked to
waterfalls and lookouts plus climbed the observation tower to experience some
of the most fabulous unspoiled views imaginable, all in all a great and fruitful
day.
Keno the ‘rigger’ came and did the job of installing the additional hoist to work our boom up and down. We have found that in Puerto Rico time is not how we tend to view it, an appointment at 13:00 is not an appointment at 13:00 it is ‘code’ for an appointment for 15:00! Anyway we got used to being told one thing and experiencing another. All was well in the end and the job was finished, one day late nevertheless which caused us an extra day in the marina and the charges that go with it! We also had two other workers on board to replace the piece of rubbing strake that we lost on our starboard side in Marina Puerto Bahia, in the DR. I supplied all materials and the labour cost for two men for two hours was $60!
The Admiral and I brought two very nice, expensive bicycles with us on board. We have had them tied to the railing on our boat deck since we left Sarasota on February 8th, they haven’t moved! Roberto the fabulous dock master at Palmas del Mar was Eddy’s (from Ocean World) equal, he helped us no end so we felt he was a worthy recipient of our gift to him of our two bikes. The last that we saw of them was Roberto and one of his dock hands riding them off the dock to his awaiting truck and the only reminder of them is the small rust stain on the boat deck which they left behind. The motto here is experience the lifestyle before buying everything that you think you might need in order to experience the life style!
Talking of the Admiral (aka HT), she has requested a demotion and will from now on be known as the First Mate, (FM). She feels that her lack of practical and academic qualification requires the demotion from her lofty position of Admiral, (a sinecure position anyway) she is a humble gal and learning fast!
After listening to Chris Parker for the last week the weather window he has been talking about has arrived. Our next passage is to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands, to me this is a significant change as we will be leaving the ‘big’ islands now and starting to experience the smaller Caribbean islands that we all see pictures of in glossy travel brochures; we’re excited! We set off from Palmas del Mar at 09:00 on Thursday 25th, apprehensively I might add, as we were not sure if all the work I had done in the engine room had fixed the ‘air in the fuel’ problem. I asked Roberto to accompany us in the marinas large dinghy as we left the marina just in case we had a problem and needed assistance, we didn’t! As each hour passed I gained more faith in Stonewall Jackson not stopping. He didn’t, the whole trip was great, the weather was as Chris had predicted and the day could not have been more perfect. We cruised into Ensenada Honda, the large bay on Culebra, at 15:00 and proceeded to the mooring field just behind the reef at Dakity. Due to the coral reef the Department of Natural Resources has placed mooring balls in this area so boats can moor and don’t have to anchor which could cause damage to the coral. In fact most of the anchorages around Culebra have mooring balls which is very nice. We boaters love mooring balls as they eliminate the worry of dragging ones anchor and allow us to sleep a little easier. We were in 12’ of water and could swim off the back of the boat in the beautiful turquoise water. This place is tranquil, beautiful, unspoiled and very calm. The reef obviously stops all the waves from penetrating the area and the water had barely a ripple, our kinda place! Almost like an atoll in the Pacific.
Our stay in Palmas del Mar was great the
staff and facility were wonderful the only drawback is the remoteness; one does
need a car to go anywhere. We did rent a small car for two days so we could do
some essential shopping and sightseeing. HT lost another pair of glasses to
‘Davey Jones’s locker’ so we had to find an optician where we could get a new
pair made in a day. So, the first day was a shopping day and the second a fun
day which took in a trip to Fajardo which is on the northeast coast of PR and
is a ‘big’ boating area. We stopped at West Marine there to buy one or two
items that we needed and then visited Marina Del Rey which is the biggest
marina in the Caribbean with a 1,000 slips. While we were there the marina
office recommended a ‘rigger’ to me that would be able to install the
additional hoist we had bought to solve the difficulties of lowering and
raising our dinghy. From here we drove to El Yunque which is the only natural
rain forest in the whole of the United States. We drove to the welcome centre
and collected all the information for our visit. We then drove and walked to
waterfalls and lookouts plus climbed the observation tower to experience some
of the most fabulous unspoiled views imaginable, all in all a great and fruitful
day.Keno the ‘rigger’ came and did the job of installing the additional hoist to work our boom up and down. We have found that in Puerto Rico time is not how we tend to view it, an appointment at 13:00 is not an appointment at 13:00 it is ‘code’ for an appointment for 15:00! Anyway we got used to being told one thing and experiencing another. All was well in the end and the job was finished, one day late nevertheless which caused us an extra day in the marina and the charges that go with it! We also had two other workers on board to replace the piece of rubbing strake that we lost on our starboard side in Marina Puerto Bahia, in the DR. I supplied all materials and the labour cost for two men for two hours was $60!
The Admiral and I brought two very nice, expensive bicycles with us on board. We have had them tied to the railing on our boat deck since we left Sarasota on February 8th, they haven’t moved! Roberto the fabulous dock master at Palmas del Mar was Eddy’s (from Ocean World) equal, he helped us no end so we felt he was a worthy recipient of our gift to him of our two bikes. The last that we saw of them was Roberto and one of his dock hands riding them off the dock to his awaiting truck and the only reminder of them is the small rust stain on the boat deck which they left behind. The motto here is experience the lifestyle before buying everything that you think you might need in order to experience the life style!
Talking of the Admiral (aka HT), she has requested a demotion and will from now on be known as the First Mate, (FM). She feels that her lack of practical and academic qualification requires the demotion from her lofty position of Admiral, (a sinecure position anyway) she is a humble gal and learning fast!
After listening to Chris Parker for the last week the weather window he has been talking about has arrived. Our next passage is to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands, to me this is a significant change as we will be leaving the ‘big’ islands now and starting to experience the smaller Caribbean islands that we all see pictures of in glossy travel brochures; we’re excited! We set off from Palmas del Mar at 09:00 on Thursday 25th, apprehensively I might add, as we were not sure if all the work I had done in the engine room had fixed the ‘air in the fuel’ problem. I asked Roberto to accompany us in the marinas large dinghy as we left the marina just in case we had a problem and needed assistance, we didn’t! As each hour passed I gained more faith in Stonewall Jackson not stopping. He didn’t, the whole trip was great, the weather was as Chris had predicted and the day could not have been more perfect. We cruised into Ensenada Honda, the large bay on Culebra, at 15:00 and proceeded to the mooring field just behind the reef at Dakity. Due to the coral reef the Department of Natural Resources has placed mooring balls in this area so boats can moor and don’t have to anchor which could cause damage to the coral. In fact most of the anchorages around Culebra have mooring balls which is very nice. We boaters love mooring balls as they eliminate the worry of dragging ones anchor and allow us to sleep a little easier. We were in 12’ of water and could swim off the back of the boat in the beautiful turquoise water. This place is tranquil, beautiful, unspoiled and very calm. The reef obviously stops all the waves from penetrating the area and the water had barely a ripple, our kinda place! Almost like an atoll in the Pacific.
Talking of Tranquility, it is something that most of you back home don’t experience very often. The ‘normal’ lives that we all, for most of our lives anyway, experience is one of some noise, a lot of noise sometimes, hustle and bustle, time restraints and schedules. Mine and Lavinia’s life now, since we have become cruisers, starts with the calm still serenity which greets the first light of day, progressing to taking in the beauty that abounds and surrounds us every day and ends with vivid views of the stars under which we usually eat our dinner. (The lack of light pollution at night gives the stars an extra brightness). These Caribbean islands are special and remind me, in many cases, of days gone by. The little shops open five days a week, the hard part is for us to remember what day of the week it is! Weekends are sacrosanct and people seem to have a good time, a family time. It is not difficult to adjust back to these times and begin, once again, to savour life and the beauty that nature has placed on our doorstep. These thoughts came to me this morning as I made my first cup of tea of the day and took it to the aft deck where I sat and admired the unspoiled scenery and the absolute tranquility that prevailed, special…please strive, sometime in your lives before it is too late, to
 |
| Our tranquil anchorage |
No comments:
Post a Comment