Why me???

I seem to be a magnet for strange people.  I don’t mean those that could be considered slightly odd socially, I mean downright weird.  And so, a funny thing happened the other day as I was sitting on the dock working on gluing a patch on the bottom of the dinghy when a guy came jogging by wearing a one piece woman’s bathing suit.  I couldn’t help but look up as he stood next to me jogging in place with his very obvious ‘man junk’ practically in my face.  “Oh, oh” I thought, here it comes, another crazy, and sure enough he asks “Got a leak in your dinghy?”  Well, duh, “No, I just like using this glue to put patches on with”. Sheesh¸ where’s Bill Engval when you need him (Here’s your sign—and if you don’t know who Bill Engval is or what the “here’s your sign” is all about, rent the Blue Collar Comedy video). I barely acknowledged him hoping he would just go away, but no, I am after all the magnet for the strange, so he starts telling me that he is working on understanding what women want and to help him to do so, he is wearing women’s clothes.  “Uh, huh” I reply, still not looking up, busily gluing the patch on the dinghy and my fingers along with it.  “I think I feel more masculine when I wear women’s clothes” the oddball comments to me and goes on to try to explain his whole theory about learning about women and men. I can’t really repeat it here because a) I was trying not to listen to him; b) I was attempting to extricate my fingers from where I had glued them to the dinghy, c) it was crazy talk which made no sense so I didn’t let it sink into my brain cells, and d) the fumes from the glue were starting to erode those brain cells I still had left.  I do recall the end of his diatribe where he declared “You know women want more in life than orgasms”.  Well call me old fashioned, but when a strange man in a woman’s bathing suit starts talking to me about orgasms, I tend to think he has stepped over the line.  I got up off the dock and muttered something about needing to see about something on the boat and walked down the finger pier so I could disappear and hope the guy and his weirdness would go away. He did, for a while, and then came jogging back just in time for me to decide it was safe to sit in the cockpit on the boat.  Of course he had to notice me there and make another strange comment, which I, again, just ignored, because I truly believe it is best to pretend that these people are not there and just look through them like they are invisible. They obviously want to be noticed and by even looking at them they manage to engage you somehow. I like to take the advice of a friend who used to say “Don’t let them suck you into their orbit”.  Indeed. He finally jogged back down the dock leaving me to wonder who lets these people loose on the world and whether the patch I had applied to the dinghy would work.  There are many questions in paradise!

Mainland Puerto Rico

Coming into Fajardo, PR

Finally the weather cleared and it was easy sailing to Fajardo on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico. The sail over took about 5 hours and I could clearly see the rainforest mountains topped by clouds as we neared the harbor.  Fajardo is the boating capital of Puerto Rico and there are many marinas there to choose from including the largest marina in the Caribbean, Puerto Playa, with 1,000 slips.  Chico Marina was selected as it had been recommended by a friend and we slipped into the gas dock to obtain fuel.  Now, I don’t speak Spanish, but have a very slight knowledge of the language, so as the boat maneuvered to the dock, I called out “Hola!” “Fuel Dock”!  Well, at least part was Spanish.  But I’m not the only one speaking “Spanglish” as this sign was posted at the fuel dock:

 

The boat was filled with fuel and water and negotiations made for a transient slip.  We have friends in Puerto Rico and hoped we would be able to catch up with them while there.  After a week at anchor, it was nice to be able to step off the boat and go ashore without the necessity of getting into the dinghy, bailing it out, and hoping the motor will get us where we want to go.  The marina was nice, not as nice as some I have been in, but acceptable.  A small, serviceable restaurant is located onsite and we had a decent dinner there.  I can generally recognize food items in Spanish so the menu proved no obstacle.  I found it interesting that in a country so associated with the States, not everyone spoke English.  I made an effort to use whatever Spanish I could muster and managed to get by on “Spanglish” whenever I ran across someone who didn’t speak English.  I think I will try to learn Spanish as there are many people who speak it and it can be useful when cruising the Caribbean.

Fajardo was a good place to re-provision and get some things taken care of.  I needed to get some laundry done, purchase groceries, propane, and some boat parts. We also needed to see about our dinghy motor which had basically quit working in Culebra.  Asking around the marina, information was provided that there were several marine stores nearby and they were, according to the source, in walking distance.  Well, walking distance is evidently in the mind of the beholder, as we found out when we had walked several miles and still hadn’t come to the shops.  It turned out that the marine stores were a good 3 miles from the marina.  Three miles may be a walk in the park to some of you, but these old folks don’t hike that much.  We did find two marine supply stores and a Yamaha outboard dealer, unfortunately they didn’t have what we needed and the Yamaha dealer didn’t want to work on our engine.  Ugh.  A decision was made to rent a car to do further shopping and, once again, we were told that the car rental agency was ‘walking distance’, although the person who said that admitted that it was a ‘long walk’.   So in the heat of the day, off we trudged to the port of Fajardo to seek a rental car.  The walk was so long and it was so hot that part way through I made a remark about feeling that I was on the Baatan death march.  The highlight of the trip was spotting a Burger King along the way and stopping for something cold to drink and some much needed air conditioning. Ahhhhhhh, I didn’t want to leave, air conditioning and drinks with ice! Something we don’t get on the boat.  When I get home I am going to use up all the ice I can find and sit in the coldest air conditioning and enjoy! 

Anyway, we finished our libations and continued on the death march to the car rental place where we finally arrived and obtained a car---with air conditioning!!  (am I stuck on this?? Probably—everyone has something they lust for!)

Once we had the car it was shopping extravaganza in Fajardo as I felt at home with Walgreens, Sears, Kmart, West Marine, and my own special “Happy Place” – Walmart!!! I made a mad dash into Walmart for fans because when we have shore power, I plug those bad boys in and, you guessed it, pretend I have a/c.

I also was able to shop in a ‘real’ grocery store, one that resembles the type in the US—big with LOTS of stuff!  I really stocked up! Good thing I had the car as I loaded it down.  I find that I have to take advantage of access to decent stores when I can get them as I can never count on what I might find on the various islands.

Stuck in Culebra, wishing for a Cuba Libre

A five hour sail from Jost Van Dyke deposited in Culebra, off Puerto Rico in the Spanish Virgin Islands. Plans were to stay for a few days before heading to mainland Puerto Rico.

Culebra is a small island, when I say small; I mean that Culebra is about the size of a small town, very small, maybe the Mayberry of the Caribbean. There are no traffic lights – there is no traffic.  There is one post office and a library. Culebra is known as much for what is not here as what is; there are no McDonald’s, KFC, Holiday Inns, or chain businesses of any type.  The people here like it this way and are determined to ‘save’ their island from becoming another tourist destination. The island is very walkable with narrow and winding streets.  We anchored in the small bay, Ensenada Honda, which is a nicely protected anchorage well inside this tiny island and flanked at its entrance by two large reefs, one on either side of a narrow channel leading into the bay.  The channel is well marked and boaters will do well to stay within the marked channel.

Looking back at the entrance to Ensenada Honda

 

 For the most part, there is little development on Culebra with shops and houses generally being those built here 40 or 50 years ago lending a strong, small town feeling to the area.  There are two rather new developments at the entrance to Ensenada Honda, one to each side.  The Sea Breeze Hotel at Costa Bonita Beach Resort is on the starboard side of the channel and the Bahia Marina Condo complex is on the port side. Both offer more modern conveniences than those available in the town and provide those who desire to visit to the island a place to sleep in air conditioning, a luxury I am looking forward to when I get home.

Seabreeze Hotel

The first day here, a quick dinghy ride ashore provided a chance to wander about and get familiar with the area.  The downtown consists of a few businesses, restaurants and the World of Kokomo Hotel across from the ferry dock.  From Culebra, ferries offer transport to Fajardo, a main port in Puerto Rico, and also to Vieques, another, but slightly larger, island off the main coast.   A hop over to the mainland for whatever shopping or business is desired can be had for $4 a person round trip.  The island has lovely beaches and is surrounded by great snorkeling. There are several, small islands (really, they are smaller than Culebra itself, which is saying something) which are uninhabited with Tortuga Beach and its lighthouse, and Luis Pena’s Cay designated as National Wildlife Refuges. Cayo Norte, Botella Cay and Cayo Matojo are not much more than rocky protrusions in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea, but offer nice, remote sandy beaches for day picnickers from boats.

 A small channel divides the island in two where a lift bridge was built several years ago allowing boats to go between the Ensenada Honda and the sea on the southern side of the island.  The bridge was constructed for two fishing boats that regularly traversed the island, however these fishing boats are no longer in service and neither is the lift bridge.   Painted bright orange, it does, at least, provide a landmark for visitors to the island.

On shore

The library at Culebra is tiny but has a remarkable movie theater (the only one in town) attached to it. Built with seats taken from an actual movie theater and a sizable screen, the library offers showings of fairly recent films, well basically what you could rent from Netflix, but for folks here, that is probably pretty good.  They also have a book exchange which I took advantage of while there to leave a bag of books I had read on the boat and grabbed some new ones.  Reading is a regular pastime on the boat so I panic when I run out of reading material. (or as I told someone--books are my crack cocaine!)

 

Finding internet during my travels is always a chore and while the library offers free internet, they are only open between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, after which they evidently turn off the wireless and go home. I was able to connect at a local bar next to the “World of Kokomo Hotel” across from the ferry dock in what passes for downtown here.  The bar was not crowded, offered outside tables and chairs and no one seemed to mind giving me the password for the internet.  In fact, the fellow sitting at one of the outdoor tables who helped me with the password told me that ‘they don’t care if you use it, but the bartender is an asshole”.  Only later did I find out that he was in fact the bartender himself.  I rarely saw him at the bar while there and had to hunt him down when I wanted a drink later.  Folks here are more than laid back. The few late afternoon drinkers at the tables were friendly and offered suggestions for dinner along with some basic information about the island.  Most of the people I met were mainland Americans, not native Puerto Ricans. Of course, when I asked one of the locals “Are there many Americans here?” I was curtly told “We are all Americans here”.  Whoops, I meant from the mainland US. I didn’t mean to insult the guy, but PR is one of those strange places no one seems to understand. As a territory of the US, it is not a state, but it is also not an independent country of its own.  This recently caused a bit of controversy when Netflix stopped allowing instant streaming of movies as they could only offer that service inside the US.  The Puerto Ricans tried to explain to Netflix that they WERE part of the US and the service was eventually restored.  Several votes have been taken asking the citizens of Puerto Rico whether they wish to become a state or an independent country.  There are never enough votes in favor of either so they remain a territory.  I guess they are happy with the status quo.

At the suggestion of a local, we had a wonderful dinner at a little restaurant across from the library,” El Eden”.  El Eden looks like an old farm building and their sign seems to have been painted on an old silo. The exterior is not very impressive, but the food is.  In fact it is so good, we were asked if we had reservations (no, we didn’t) and told that they would try to fit us in or we could dine on the front porch outside.  Not minding a little al fresco dining, and being very hungry, the outside sounded fine. We enjoyed a meal under the stars while being visited by small lizards that climbed among the plants surrounding our table.  Fresh fish, including local lobster is offered on the menu along with steaks and vegetarian fare.  The waitress suggested splitting an entrée of seafood pasta, which we did, and it was more than enough for two. Served with a salad comprised of fresh greens and goats cheese it was topped with homemade balsamic dressing.  I am sorry I didn’t take a photo of the dinner, but was too hungry so dove right in.  The evening was mild and a frangipani bush next to the table wafted its heady perfume over me as I enjoyed one of the best meals I have had in the islands.

The following day another trip was made ashore for some grocery shopping.  The local “Superette” seemed a good choice and was, other than a very small mom and pop store, the only other place within walking distance.  Not sure what passes here for “Super” but the “Superette” was not much more than an overgrown convenience store.  They had little in the way of fresh produce and no fresh meat or fish and dairy products were extremely limited. I grabbed what I could to last for a day or so until we got to the mainland. Little did I know that a storm was approaching and we would be stranded aboard the boat for the next three days.

A cold front was passing through the area bringing with it sustained winds of 20-25 with gusts to 45 along with high seas and rip currents.  After a few recent passages that felt like the boat was a cork in a washing machine, a decision was made to sit still and wait out the storm. In looking around the anchorage it seemed like a communal decision, as not only were the boats around us staying put, there was a steady stream of new boats arriving.  The storm arrived Saturday evening with torrential rain showers and the wind kicked up blowing everyone around and heeling boats over when it came alongside them.  The brunt of the storm was supposed to pass through Saturday night into Sunday with lessening of winds and waves occurring Monday into Tuesday. 

The ‘groceries’ I had purchased quickly dwindled so it took some creative cooking during the next few days while the storm raged.  Luckily I always keep a good supply of canned goods on board allowing me to throw together some basic meals.  It was too windy and rainy to take the dinghy ashore as trying to fight the wind in an inflatable boat is difficult in the best conditions and almost impossible in rough water.

Of course, there is no TV or internet on the boat, so thank goodness I had acquired new books to read and I spent much of the storm dry and comfortable below deck curled up with familiar authors.  Although, after three days of being stuck on the boat I did get a bit claustrophobic and wished for a nice Cuba Libre or other libation at the downtown bar which I could enjoy while NOT rocking and rolling on a stormy sea. The storm abated Monday but the wind kept up through Tuesday and finally by Wednesday we were able to leave Culebra and head to mainland PR where we were to meet up with some friends.  Luckily most cruisers have no schedule and the delay allowed our friends a chance to free themselves up to spend some time aboard with us.

The cruising life offers much enjoyment but there are always times where the unexpected occurs; good books, canned food and the ability to let things roll off help get through these times.

Fair winds to you!