Only … 24 Days in Salinas

Leaving a anchorage at o'dark thirty allows us one advantage: enjoying some incredible sunrises. When you are at sea everything around you is horizon and when part of that vast horizon is filled with a cornucopia of yellows, oranges, magentas, reds and everything in between, it's a great way to start the day. For the last week we had been anchored at somewhat remote places so we were anxious to get to a port where we could get our genset repaired, water and fuel tanks refilled, and stocked up on provisions. We had heard that "pseudo-US" Puerto Rico with its Walmart's and Costco's was a great place to reprovision. It also would be nice to enjoy an occasional McDonalds chocolate sundae (Walter) and shop at stores with a greater variety of food and supplies.

The town of Salinas half way down the south coast of Puerto Rico fit the bill perfectly. The anchorage is surrounded by a number of small mangrove islands that provide good protection from storms. Many boaters ride out the hurricane season by running their boats up small canals in the mangrove swamps and then tying a spider web of lines every which way to hold them tight.

Anchorage at Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Fueling up was our first priority, but when we saw the dock we knew it would be a challenge. To enter the fuel dock at Marina de Salinas you had to navigate a narrow opening and then try to align your boat with the dock at a 45 ° angle. We barely squeezed ourselves in and got refueled, but a 20-knot wind on our beam pinned us to the dock. We finally had to call Mark on Field Trip to come and use his dingy to push our bow away from the dock. Thank you Mark (we actually owe Mark and Sara a thousand thanks for their incredible generosity to us over the four weeks we've sailed together.

The staff at the Marina de Salinas was very accommodating for the cruisers anchored out in the harbor.

Freed from the jaws of the fuel dock we found a spot to anchor a little further out in the harbor, which was surprisingly crowded with sailboats given how late in the season it was. We tucked in about a ¼ mile from the marina in the "cheap seats" of the harbor (something we later regretted as we made frequent trips to the dingy dock in 20-knot winds).

We dingied in and took a "lay-of-the-land" walk to explore the basics: laundry, groceries, where the best cruiser bars are, where to get the great baguettes, etc. We also started networking with the locals and other cruisers to find a good English-speaking mechanic to help with our broken genset. (I will not go into further detail on this matter as Walter is covering that topic in excruciating detail in a later post!) We needed a car to help get genset parts, provisions, and hopefully see a little of the city of San Juan and the rain forest areas. Luckily the marina told us about a local Hertz guy who would deliver a rental car directly to the marina. The marina staff was very helpful and even allowed cruisers to park their rental cars in the parking lot.

Jean, the very friendly owner of Sal Pa' Dentro, a local cruisers bar in Salinas near the marina.

We spent a lot of time at the marina's outdoor café cooling off, meeting other cruisers for happy hours, and enjoying the great BBQ dinners every Friday night. We even ran into some friends of Field Trip's, Sea Shell and Wind Lass, who taught us how to play the de rigueur cruiser domino game, Mexican Train.

A rousing game of Mexican Train dominoes, a favorite among the cruiser community.

Life in Salinas settled into a routine. Mornings were focused around Walter and our British mechanic Steve pondering the 1,000 reasons the genset wouldn't start, running errands, and traveling one hour down the coast to Ponce -- the second largest city in Puerto Rico -- to get parts. Once the genset was removed from the boat and taken to the Kubota dealer (20 min. away) and we had some semblance of order on the boat, we then started stocking up on non-perishable goods at the local Walmart Super Store and I started hunting for more space on-board. We'll do our major provisioning at Costco in San Juan and I will then top-off from Walmart and Selectos, a good local grocery store, for vegetables and fruit to complete our re-provisioning for the next 9 to 12 months. Imagine having to plan ahead 9 to 12 months every time you go shopping, and facing the prospect that most items you buy will not be available later on.

After all the stress and disruption caused by the genset rebuild, Walter and I decided we needed to treat ourselves to a night away from the boat. With the settees covered with tool boxes, the smell of oil and diesel in the air, and nothing in its place, it all wears very thin on you considering your entire living space is the size of a big closet. We found a hotel on Priceline, along a beachfront strip just east of San Juan and booked a room for the night.

The green hills that run down the center of Puerto Rico and create many of the afternoon thunderstorms.

After dropping off the dead genset with the Kubota dealer who assured us he could get it running (but at what cost?), we then drove on the highway away from the flat coastal plain and slowly climbed up into the verdant green mountains that dominate the interior of Puerto Rico.
Our first stop on the way to San Juan was West Marine to get marine parts and supplies and then on to Astro Industrial (we almost got divorced trying to navigate to this location given the aggressive drivers, narrow streets, and Spanish traffic signs), a large industrial supply company in San Juan. The trip to Astro was successful, however, since Walter had been looking for a 12 ft. piece of 3/8" stainless steel chain to lock up the dingy at docks. We found one in the Abacos and they wanted $400 for it. Walter got it for $78 at Astro. Now we can have some assurance our dingy will be at the dock when we get back from having dinner.

Looking east from El Morro along San Juan's Atlantic coastline.

Leaving Astro we navigated the narrow streets to the historic Old San Juan section at the head of the harbor and amazingly found a good underground parking garage (parking is non existent in the section of town).

The esplanade leading up to the walls of El Morro.

We walked along a beautiful expansive esplanade of grass that lead up to the "El Morro" fort, built to protect San Juan Bay's deep natural harbor from the marauding British, French, Portuguese, etc. during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The harbor was strategically located along the trade routes from the New World back to Europe where Spanish galleons transported a fortune in gold and silver. Construction of El Morro commenced in 1539 with additional fortifications of Castillo San Cristobal and San Juan's city wall added in 1634. From the 1500's through 1700's enormous New World riches supported Spain as a world power.

The fort had six levels and we explored all of them imagining what it must have been like to be a Spanish Musketeer protecting the Bay from English and Dutch attacks.

It's fun to read historic novels of the pirate days and then walk the same ramparts and corridors depicted in the novels. Really brings history alive for us.

Throughout Old San Juan, we saw many tributes to Christopher Columbus and his sighting of Puerto Rico in 1493. We found the town of Old San Juan to be very picturesque with historic churches and buildings dating back to the 1600's.

We meandered up Calle San Francisco and back down Calle Fortaleza looking at shops, galleries, and outdoor restaurants along the way. We finally stopped at a local frozen yogurt shop to cool off in the air conditioning and enjoy some great yogurt, a real treat when its so hot and humid outside.

We enjoyed walking in the cool shade along the Pasceo de la Princessa, which meanders below the walls of El Morro.

We later discovered a wonderful walk along the harbour at the base of the fort's walls called Paseo de la Princessa, resplendent with small parks and gardens with statues. Old San Juan proved to be a wonderful place to get in some walking, now we just have to find the hidden underground parking lot and brave rush hour traffic as we try to find our hotel on the outskirts of San Juan.

After living in 400 sq. ft. of space on the boat, this was the lap of luxury for us.

We checked into our room and immediately enjoyed the luxury of air conditioning, local TV, a flush toilet, and non-stop hot running water!! I realize these amenities are not essential and one can certainly get along fine without them, but once you luxuriate under a 20 minute show it brings back all the memories of our previous lifestyles. (I took 3 showers.) We had dinner in the hotel and then headed down to the hot tub to relax before retiring for the evening.

The next morning we found a great little breakfast spot down the road and then headed out to the beach and pool area. We took a dip in the pool and relaxed on the huge lounge beds and read our books. It was great to relax and not think about all the other things going on in our lives. A vacation from the vacation.

Next on the agenda was to stop at Costco on the outskirts of San Juan, which we did in record time as we had forgotten that our US bank debit card had expired (our mail was waiting for us in St. Thomas). So with limited cash we kept track of each item's cost with the iPhone's calculator until we came to within $8 dollars of our total, just enough left over to get a Costco hot dog and coke ... phew! We drove back to the marina and hauled the goodies from the car, onto the dock, into the dink, motored out to the boat, lifted them up to the cockpit, down into the cabin, and then wrapped most items in zip-locks and squished them into various nooks & crannies under the settees and in the cabinets. What would take one maybe a couple hours at home, on a boat usually takes a day or more.

Finally relaxing after all the provisioning drill, we remembered that all our "buddy boats" had left that morning heading to the Spanish Virgin Islands. We were feeling a bit sad to have them all leave without us. It was time to practice two key principals: "Patience" & "The Big Picture". The genset will get sorted out eventually and we will be on our way again; we are healthy and doing fine; and we have no precise cruising plan so we can always do another season in the Caribbean, and sooner or later we will catch up with our friends and maybe make some new ones along the way. So no worries ... I'm feeling better already.

A day later our genset was finally fixed and ready to pick up. We scheduled Steve to help reinstall and check it further. It ran great but when we tried to restart it, it wouldn't budge. We all died a thousand deaths but realized we're getting closer to having a reliable genset just as soon as we get through this new set of problems (turned out to be a dead injector pump to the tune of $400 plus overnight shipping from Florida) is fixed.