Hello America! We haul up the anchor and after a quick phone call to customs pull over to the seawall to show them our passports (that’s right, you heard it, cell phones, civilization, it’s a crazy thing). Unfortunately, they are expecting us to pay them $25 to tie up to the seawall for twenty mins or so – no way. Dad somehow agilely steps off the boat and leaves me to do loops in the harbor. I guess that the seawall is owned by the cruise company, but the customs officials themselves are great. They even managed to id Mom and me to our passport pictures from out the window. Dad shows back up and I pick him up at the seawall (via three attempts) with minimal damage to Departure, only a knick in the teak bowsprit – I call that a success.
Mom, who had spent quite a bit of time in Mayaguez already after her first Mona crossing, suggests we head down to Boquerón. After traveling along the Dominican northern coast for so long, it is such a beautiful thing to see all of these little anchor markings along shoreline on my charts! Knowing that we can just pull in any ol’ time is refreshing. Even better is reefing the main and pulling out the jib. It has been so long since we have really sailed and here we are whipping up an easy 6 knots in a 10-12 knot breeze and cruising along the Western side of Puerto Rico. It is bizarre that something so nice – sailing Western Puerto Rico – is next to something so nasty – the Mona. We sip warm Nattie Lights and make phone calls to gloat to friends at home.
We are soon dropping in the dinghy and pulling up to the glorious town dinghy dock. This town is made for boaters! The dinghy dock leads to a bar, restaurant, pool hall, and snack bar. The streets are lined with stands selling oysters and stone clams between $4-6 per dozen. There is a laundry mat, bar with internet, marine shop, and grocery store all nearby along the side streets. During the week this town is pretty much shut down except for those frequenting the nearby beach or the boaters living in the bay, but more primarily this town is made as a weekend getaway for those from Mayaguez or Ponce. We snack on empanadas (meat/seafood stuffed turnovers) and surullitos (fried cornmeal and cheese sticks) and drink the local beers ($1 cans of Madallas) at the Shamar Bar – the first bar off of the dinghy dock. After exchanging stories about the Mona with other boaters (ps. this is where I became certain all boaters are liars!), we tour the town, get our bearings and eat Dorado tacos and guava deep fried cheesecake at Pika-Pika. What I learned from this is go straight to Boquerón, catch a ride or pay for a cab to clear customs up at Mayaguez and enjoy the comforts of Boquerón because you DESERVE them – you just crossed the Mona.
We stay another day to do internet at Galloway’s and for Mom to do laundry along with some provisioning, resting, and drinking. After hours of working on computer work at Galloway’s I find that their Margaritas are much stronger than I anticipated. Dad and Mom continue to jerry can diesel from the local gas station and we all go to provision with diet coke and chips at the store where we came across the most beautiful part of Puerto Rican culture (I am being factious, of course) – Gasolina. This leads to a chicken and the egg sort of question – the song Dame La Gasolina by Daddy Yankee is this song about sex, gasoline, or this potent Capri Sun-esque adult beverage. I googled it several times but all I really found is the Urban Dictionary definition:
“Gasolina- Spanish word for gasoline. Gasolina is a ready made cocktail from Puerto Rico. It's made with rum, tequila, and fruit juice. 11% alcohol 200ml and comes in a pouch that looks like a Capri Sun (straw and all). In the states you can drink it in front of the POPO. When I drink and drive. I drink GASOLINA.”
After an epic night on the town which included signature drinks, cordon blue balls, loaded oysters, dancing with lesbians, biffing with people from Michigan, and drinking with locals in a closed down bar with pirate statues, we are ready for in the morning to move along and we head to La Parguera.
La Parguera is on the western end of the south coast of Puerto Rico. We still have a very nice sailing day and we pass some enjoyable landmarks including a beautiful lighthouse. I have never really been too keen on lighthouse before, but Puerto Rico has 16 of them with around 11 which are still functional. After sailing for these last few months I value lighthouses to a much larger degree and find them absolutely beautiful. It is crazy to think about how many people have been comforted by the light of a lighthouse or how many tragedies and close calls these lighthouses have seen.
Once we rounded the corner with the light house we see the next bizarre landmark – a blimp. I google it on the Kindle and come to find that it is a radar drug blimp that is used to find low flying drug planes. The locals around here seem to think it is for other weird United State government things. I understand their animosity toward America and especially the United States’ military due to all of the bombings of the Spanish Virgin Islands.
La Parguera is the polar opposite of Boquerón. Both may be weekend towns, but this town is not built for boaters! There is no public dinghy dock, no place to land your dinghy, and every inch of water front is taken up by stilted houses that are colorfully decorated. The houses are lined with private boats and people partying on their porches. What a life. This is the way to live in Puerto Rico! On the water, with your boat, near Boquerón and Ponce and since this island is the size of New Hampshire you can cross the island easy enough. The town, in personal opinion, isn’t as fetching and unique as Boquerón and it also seems quite a bit smaller. We do make a friend, Norm, who is opening a bar – Norm’s Place in town.
I bet you guys are thinking – hey, slackers, don’t you guys have a broken boat? Oh yes, you may have forgotten that our wind generator is lashed to our mizzen mast with a tangle of lines and the mizzen halyard. We haven’t forgotten, in fact we had to fashion a pulley system to get the dinghy engine down since the halyard was unavailable. So it is 9 am and time for me to go up the mizzen mast. Dad has rigged me a better harness, which I actually don’t much care for. We pull off the lines and I fill my fanny pack with wrenches and the different bolts we bought in Boquerón – this time stainless steel. I climb up the mast and Dad pulls the wind generator forward while Mom tails my harness. I begin having a ton of trouble with tightening the lock nut because I can’t use both of my hands to hold both ends of the bolt. I need my free arm to hold me onto the mizzen mast. I am not brave enough to just lean off the mast itself. I start yelling at Dad that he is in no position to give commands. I am getting nervous because after a while in a weird position on a mast your legs start to give out, not to mention, there are lots of dinghies and power boats here so the longer I am up here the more likely the boat might get rocked with some boat wake. I stop… breath… as Cap’t Fatty says…
Fixing stuff is just intelligence applied.
Last time I had two wrenches and it worked. I need another wrench so I can just hold the wrench immobile while simultaneously using the arm to hold me against the mizzen mast. Bam. Done. I am starting to get too good at this – I hope Mom and Dad don’t notice that fact. As a reward we go on a dinghy tour through the mangroves with Norm. The pathway was deep, manmade trench through the mangroves which leads out to monkey island – an island where they used to do monkey experiments. Once this ended they just abandoned the monkeys on the island and they slowly but surely made it to mainland and now live in the mountains outside of La Parguera where they harass the rural workers. We lunch at Dona Luisa where I see my Michigan friends from Boquerón – I swear this is the third time I have been in a random country where I am supposed to not know anyone and someone calls out Nea. Each time it’s a bit jarring.
By 4 pm we are hauling up the anchor. We have places to be and people to see, specifically, our family lawyer and close friend, Patrick Costello, in Vieques, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands.
For your appreciation – Puerto Rico is owned by Coors Light. I SWEAR! I think all the bars on this island should just be renamed Coors Light Bar 1, Coors Light Bar 2, etc. Every bar is plastered with Coors Light signs – actually most buildings are plastered with Coors Light signs. Can you find the one hidden in this picture?
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