Puerto Rico, Here We Come!

After much consideration and lots of late night and early morning conversations, we decided that Puerto Rico would be our next destination. Our time frame for getting north of Cape Hatteras by June 1st, the official start of hurricane season, limits our stops. Though it might have been nice to linger in the Eastern Caribbean islands, a straight shot north is more in keeping with our schedule. We've visited Puerto Rico before and it's wonderful. Also, since it's a US Territory, it's an easy check-in to the USA.

There are several US ports of entry in Puerto Rico, but the one that seemed easiest and most appealing was in the little town of Dewey (aka Culebra) on Isla Culebra. The anchorage in Ensenada Honda has a well-marked entry and the bay is protected from the tradewinds and wave action. By having previously enrolled in the USA's new SVRS programs (Small Vessel Reporting System) and filing a pre-passage float plan with US Customs, we are hoping the check-in procedure will be painless.

Culebra, a little island just east of Puerto Rico's main island, is considered a paradise by some with white sand beaches and a laid-back island attitude, but with enough amenities (food, booze and internet) to keep visitors happy. Its name, “Culebra”, translates to snake, but from my research I ascertained that there aren't many snakes on the island and what few there might be, they're neither venomous nor aggressive. I can live with that. We're interested in judging the “paradise quotient” for ourselves since Culebra is still considered a bit off the beaten path.

If time permits, we'd also like to spend some time in PR's capital city of San Juan. It's a beautiful Spanish colonial city, well-preserved and great to explore. Though we've been to San Juan  in the past, our memories are so bad nowadays, it'll be all new territory.

We expected the usual wait and hassle of the check-out procedure, but there was none. There was only one other person at Immigration and we whizzed through the process, as fast as you can whiz through an official procedure that involves 15 forms, carbon paper and lots of rubber stamps. Customs was the same. We paid our fees and we were legal to leave. We were all psyched up for our departure. We had more $TTs left than we'd planned on, so we caught a maxi-taxi to  Massy's to spend them on non-perishable food and the few freshies we planned to take on board. David had a hankering for a Quarter Pounder at Burger King next door to the supermarket, but when he ordered it, they were all out of beef! We settled for an iced coffee at Rituals and then caught a maxi-taxi back to Chaguaramas and lugged our booty back to the boatyard. While David loaded the dinghy, I spent all but our very last $TT1 at the little Dockside Market. Back aboard, we stowed our purchases, hauled the dinghy and made last minutes checks for an early morning departure. We took our Stugeron … just in case.

The course is all plotted. We've checked weather. We have as many freshies aboard as we think will last in this heat without refrigeration plus plenty of canned goods in the larder. We're off at dawn. We'll update Gentry with passage notes en route, but it's a short trip (~500 nm), so we won't be out of touch for too long.

Back in the Water - Adjustments Required

Well, we've not been on the water since last December and it's definitely noticeable. Cups seems to be enjoying it just fine. She's bobbing in the bay water, rocking and rolling with the waves and wakes. She strains on her mooring like a horse at the starting gate, rearing to go. We, on the other and, are finding it necessary to make a few adjustments to living on the water again.

We can't just climb down the ladder and head to the store or chandlery any more. It requires a dinghy ride. Because of security issues here, the dinghy and engine are hauled each night, so it's a bit of extra work getting ashore. On the other hand, we do not have climb down the ladder to empty the pee bucket or to go pee. I'll vote for launching the dink any time. Dropping something from the deck no longer results in “thud” and descending the ladder to retrieve the screwdriver or whatever. Now we just hear “splash” and whatever dropped is gone forever. Not that we've ever dropped anything into the water ...

On the other hand, there's no need for the long, hot, dusty walk to the Massy's Express Supermarket at Crew's Inn for our daily provisions. Instead, we can just dinghy across the harbor, tie up at the Crew's Inn dinghy dock, do our shopping and dinghy back. Much faster, more convenient and definitely less sweaty.

We haven't been taking it easy though. Before we can leave, there's still lots to do now that Cups is in her element. David reattached the jib furler, tensioned the shrouds and tuned the rig. He reassembled the furler and ran the furling lines.

Early on a calm, windless morning, we hanked on the foresails and re-rigged the sheets. I've been working on polishing the stainless, filling up the easy-access lockers from the larder, and stowing stuff we won't be needing and what seems like a million other little chores I can't seem to think of now. I'm also still researching possible ports-of-call along the way north, though time is short and there won't be much time for stopping if we're to be north of Cape Hatteras by June 1. David just completed an oil change on the engine and has begun stowing his tools and supplies.

It's the welcome sound of gulls and terns crying as they fly over that wakes us in the morning now rather than the melodic sound of kiskadees sitting on our solar panels. Frigate birds soar gracefully high above us and pelicans swoop low, just over the water's surface, looking for breakfast. The whir of the wind gen spinning is almost comforting.

The mooring field is quite full and there are anchored boats as well. Chaguaramas Harbour is anything but calm and quiet. There's a certain amount of fetch that comes into the bay when it's windy (and it has been) which can make it a bit rocky aboard. Most of the rock'n'roll however is from the never ending boat traffic around us … fishing boats, ferries, pilots, pleasure boats … all with a penchant to go fast and as close to the moored boats as possible.

One motor boat came so close to a small, anchored sailboat that its propeller clipped the sailboat's anchor rode, cutting it loose. The folks on the sailboat were off the boat at the time and another diligent cruiser noticed what happened and rescued the boat. Earlier today, we were “nudged” by a large sport fishing boat. He just wasn't paying attention. There was quite a racket as he detangled himself from our big anchor sitting on the bow, but thankfully, no harm done.

It's crazy out here … and noisy. Locals enjoy loud music and there are lots of party boats that go back and forth all night long, music blaring. Around 5am, it tapers off. Time for us to get up and start our day. Since our mooring is only ~200' from shore, we're entertained non-stop. In fact, many times it sounds as if the DJ is on our deck!

I think of the rock'n'rollin' ride as a good chance to recover our sea legs a bit and staying up all night with the local music is good practice for night watch. Now if we can only remember how to sail!

Splashed!

A great word … “splash”. It's a figure of speech called onomatopoeia … when a word mimics the sound it actually makes. There's always a little trepidation when we hear the TraveLift rumble up and get into position to lift Cups for her trip back to the water. They hitched up the straps, lifted her a little and then removed the stands. David snuck underneath to paint the small patches at the bottom of the keel that we hadn't been able to paint.

Will those straps hold our 20-ton girl? Of course, they will, but there's always a hitch in our breaths as they pull the stands away.

We followed her down the dirt road to the haul-out/launch bay. The TraveLift moves about 2 miles/hour and Cups swayed ever so slightly as they rolled along. It wasn't hard to keep up.

The driver aligned the TraveLift wheels with the narrow tracks and they moved Cups over the water. Slowly, slowly, slowly they lowered her and then in slow-mo, her keel touched the water. There's no actual loud splash … at least there shouldn't be. It's a gentle reunion with the water and she was once again floating, the straps still in place till we boarded her and made ready to go.

We clambered aboard, a long step from the TraveLift track onto the port side deck. David checked the new seacock and thru-hull for leaks and made sure the engine seacock was open. He started the engine and burped the new shaft seal. We checked there was water coming out the exhaust. He gave forward and reverse gears a try to make sure we were ready. We'd already rigged lines and the dock guys were holding the lines as the TraveLift lowered and released the straps and Cups was on her own. We backed slowly out of the launch slip into the waters of Chaguaramas Harbour.

As luck would have it, Zephyr, a sister ship to Nine of Cups, had been hauled the day before. Bill stopped by just before we splashed to ask if we were interested in the mooring they'd just left which was all paid up for another week. How sweet is that? David maneuvered us to the mooring field, I hauled in the docklines and prepared to pick up the mooring. Two tries before I lassoed the sucker … I'm out of practice. But we're back in the water and making plans for finally putting some miles under the keel in 2016.