Monkeyshines and Davy

We raised our genny then our mainsail. The wind was only about 8 knots, but picked up to 15 or so later. We were sailing! We switched off both engines and flew up the coast of PR, making as much as 6.5 to 7 knots in some of the gusts. It was no time before we spotted Cayo Santiago.

Cayo Santiago is a pretty little island lying a mile off the eastern coast of PR. At first sight, there’s nothing to distinguish it from the hundreds of other pretty little islands. However, back in 1938, the Smithsonian and Columbia University turned it into a top-notch research laboratory. Aside from a few buildings, the principal new introduction to the island was 500 Rhesus monkeys. They have been living free on the island’s 39 acres ever since and now number some 1,200 monkeys.

We sailed as close as we could and ogled at monkeys through binoculars. There is an anchorage, but we wanted to be on our way. Had we stopped and dropped Boffo, we might have got much closer. The island is closed to the public as the monkeys can be quite aggressive. I have a photo of a brown dot on a beach, and of a brown dot walking along the beach. So, ultimately, not a particularly noteworthy experience, but one still worth having. Especially given the lovely sail that took us there.

Here be monkeys.

After we’d ogled for a bit, we set course for Vieques, about 18 miles away. Vieques and Culebra are the Spanish Virgin Islands, the next step on our explorations. Our readings told us they had attracted a lot of ex-pat Americans of the most laid-back variety. Don’t be in a rush for anything. It sounded delightful.

We had to motor part of the way across, but angled ourselves so we got a nice sail into Esperanza, the settlement on the south side of Vieques. It consists of a row of shops and stalls along the waterfront—The Strip—and some homes and the odd shop on the few streets inland. The main town of Vieques is Isabella Segunda, on the north shore. One woman we spoke to called going there, “going to town”, so Esperanza is considered a suburb, I suppose.

Vieques hit the news big time back in 1999. The residents had been trying for years to get the U.S. Navy to stop using the east end of the island, part of Camp Garcia, for target practice. Then, in 1999, a viequense civilian guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, was killed when two big bombs went astray. Locals say the fellow in charge of the test had left the room for a smoke. The outrage was nothing to what had gone before and a huge media campaign drew international attention. In 2003, the U.S. Navy withdrew from Vieques. Now the only personnel are those working to remove all the “unexploded ordnance”. The job is expected to be finished in 2013.

We arrived in the Puerto Real bay off Esperanza at about 2 p.m. We were delighted to see moorings. We picked up one across the bay from The Strip, near a tiny island. We had a post-crossing swim, where WW introduced me to my first barracuda (I kept the hand with the bracelet behind my back). Later, when we were mucking about onboard, we heard the sound of a small outboard…a dinghy was approaching. The skinny, long-haired, blond, 50-something guy driving introduced himself as Davy. It was a mooring he had put in. He wanted $20 for two nights. He was also willing to schlep water to us in 6.5 (US)-gallon jugs. And he undertook to take our propane tank and get it filled. All for a sum, of course, but we were pleased to be getting any water or propane at all.

The Coast of PR

We were up at 5:30 and cast off about a half hour later. We motored the 20 miles to Salinas, reputed to be a great cruisers’ hangout.

We arrived about noon. The large protected bay was a sea of masts. We found a mooring. My first attempt at catching a mooring was not a thing of beauty. For one thing, I hadn’t worn gloves. Mooring balls generally have a second float that you snag with your boathook, then pull up to get to the bit that attaches to the real mooring. All the lines live in the water and are, in consequence, coated with slime, seaweed, shells, and (nastiest of all) barnacles. Barnacles hurt…they give you multiple tiny paper cuts. Just add salt water… At any rate, we got the deed done on our third attempt and found ourselves nestled between a monohull moored to port and a pair of royal terns in full breeding finery to starboard. They spent a great deal of time there, preening and nattering. I hope they don’t plan to try it as a nesting site.

We decided to go in for dinner and took Boffo in to the marina’s dinghy dock. The adjacent hotel had an outdoor bar where we (foolishly) ordered possibly the worst wine of our entire voyage. That’s really saying something; ask my sister. A rather drunk woman came up to the bar and introduced herself as Lynn. She invited us to sit at a table with her and her friends. We joined them after switching to rum. “O God, no!” she said, “Never stray from rum in these parts.”

We met Kathy and Ron from the good ship At Last, Lynn and Dennis from the yellow ketch (whose name I failed to catch), and Phil (wife Marianne absent) from the 42 Manta cat Calypso. Very nice people. We had a good chat then decided my oxtail stew probably trumped anything we could find in the village, and headed back to Django.

We raised anchor the next day (Tuesday, May 6) at 5:30 and sailed up protected water between a line of cays and the coast. Following us was Calypso. Eventually, the cays went away and we had to get out into the great wide sea. We turned to starboard and went through the Boca del Infierno. I choose to translate that as the Jaws of Hell. Reefs to the right of us, reefs to the left of us, reefs all around us volleyed and thundered. Actually, it was a bit of a nonevent. Light airs and an ebb tide. But I’ve been through the Jaws of Hell. Not everyone gets to do that.

Our next stop was Punta Patillas, about 20 miles from Salinas. Once again, we were there at about noon, but then fussed trying to find a good anchorage. Finally, after having our anchor alarm go off repeatedly (it let’s us know when we’ve moved more than 0.1 nm), WW dove down and set the anchor manually. Then he came up to discover all our propane had leaked out of our tank. We decided to barbecue.

Calypso was anchored upwind of us and we saw she was out of Prout’s Neck. When they passed by later to say hi, we learned they know the Smiths (Andrea, Tassy, Bobby/Howard, and Gordie). They couldn’t stay to chat as they were dining aboard another boat anchored with us. Their cruising plan was much like ours for the next bit, so we expect to see them from time to time.

The next morning, they had the drop on us and raised anchor at about 5:45; we were 30 minutes behind. The other boat, a monohull, left some time after us, but made far better time than we as we continued to bash into the Trade Winds and seas. At the southeast corner of PR, both the other boats headed down to Vieques. I had an island I wanted to see first and WW wanted to sail, so we left our convoy to head up the east coast of

Leaving Ponce

Before we had left for Montreal, I had put a small amount of bleach (less than ¼ cup) into each of our 40-gallon water tanks. WW swore up and down there was nothing wrong with the water; I swore up and down it was revolting, vile, and undrinkable. The chlorine did a great job and didn’t leave any taste after and hour or two. I ran the bleachy water through both our sink taps, to make sure the lines were all cleared out. From pong to pure! It was lovely. WW grumped on board saying he could smell the bleach halfway down the dock.

In preparation for our departure from Ponce, WW cleaned the water filter at the kitchen sink (a special hand pump provides drinking water), then decided my bleach treatment had worked so well, he’d repeat it. His notion was that, if a little worked, a lot would be better. The taps ran pure bleach for a while, then I filled the tanks with fresh water, hoping the bleach would be diluted sufficiently that my drinking water wouldn’t make me think “swimming pool.” Let’s just say, it helped, but it wasn’t a full cure.

Then I did laundry, swabbed inside, and hosed down the decks. In our absence, birds had clearly decided our boat was the perch of choice. WW had done a thorough job, but they’d been back.

I checked on the oxtail stew I was making. I had bought an entire jointed oxtail for $13 US at the warehouse. The beef here is tough as old nails, but very tasty. I had had this stew going for two days, off and on. In a nod to our location, it contained chunks of yautía (taro), cassava, chayote (also chocho or christophene), and West Indian pumpkin. It was amazing, and fed us several more dinners. For a special treat, I made WW dessert: bananas sautéed in butter, brown sugar, lime juice, and rum. He had the leftovers on his oatmeal two days running.

Well fed, we retired, ready to raise anchor bright and early, and head east along the south coast of PR

Water Water Everywhere

Preamble

It is rather hard to find wifi connections out here in the wilderness. Thus, I dump a load of bloggage whenever I find same. That’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it.


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In reviewing my last few posts, I realize I was pretty peremptory about our water woes. I will enlarge.

On arrival in Ponce, after two weeks away from Django, we discovered the head (both room and throne) full of water. Before leaving, WW had switched off the sea cock to the head (the throne), then switched off the shower/bilge pump. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realized that the handle had stopped when it bumped into the floor and needed to be taken off, reattached, and pushed further. The shower/bilge pump sits in a box into which the shower water drains. The whole head (room) is the shower stall, with a drain in the floor (or sole, as we nautical types call them). The box had, of course, filled up and overflowed into the bilge. All sorts of interesting things got soaked. Which was fine since it was mostly stuff that had come with Django and that WW hadn’t had time to sort through. Much of it was rubbish and the bilge is now a less crowded, not to mention drier place.

Immediately after repairing that minor mess, WW discovered our water pump had packed it in. Perhaps I should explain how water on a boat works. We have a couple of big steel tanks in the bow that we fill with fresh water. We also have a water maker, but it isn’t hooked up. There is a little foot-operated pump at the kitchen sink that brings in sea water, but we’ve switched that off. Salt water is horrible stuff to have inside, corrodes everything, and many cruisers refuse to have it aboard. We’ve joined that philosophical set. The water pump brings water from whichever tank has been selected. This water goes to the kitchen, the head (sink and shower) and the outside shower (for rinsing off after swims and kayaks and so on). This pump was failing to work.

Of course, repairing it would involve hanging head down in a small storage area. That goes without saying. This was, however, in a particularly obnoxious location. Underneath the seats in the salon are little cubicles. Beneath the long bench, running the width of the salon behind the salon table, are two such spaces, separated by a partition. The port one contains our four batteries and their maintenance materials—a red plastic box holding a plastic water cup and distilled water. The starboard one contains our water pump and the doodad for switching between water tanks. So WW had to remove all the cushions, crawl under the table, and contort himself up, over, and down. I helped by bringing him stuff so he didn’t have to insert and extract himself too often.

The joys of DIY pump repairs

I will not go into too much detail. The pump is affixed to a bracket which is affixed to the partition. Unable to remove the pump from the bracket, the next plan was to remove the bracket from the mitoyen wall. This meant going into the battery area and removing the nuts from the bracket’s bolts. This meant removing the (well-jammed-in) red box and contents, and shifting the batteries the small distance they would move away from the wall. It also meant discovering WW’s hands were too big.

Enter the last mate! (Did I mention I was promoted?) I too inserted myself under the table. With instructions like “don’t drop the nuts…we’ll never get them back”, it was a tension-filled few minutes for me. Plink, plank, plunk, out came all three. I was congratulated. While WW detached the bracket and removed it and the pump to the cockpit, I established for myself that I could, in fact, reach the bottom of the compartment behind the batteries, should the need ever arise.

Next we cleaned all the bits of the pump, WW put it back together and reinstalled it. This involved my putting on the nuts on the battery side of things. It wasn’t easy, but we got the dratted thing in and…it ran! And ran and ran. WW thought maybe the wee pressure tank wasn’t holding pressure. Eventually, however, the pump pulled itself together and stopped running. Regardless, we weren’t too happy with the result and decided to see if we could find a replacement.

Amazingly, at the chandlery not far from our dock, WW located a new pump. I was shopping in the Puerto Rican equivalent of Costco; stocked up on canned milk and mayo and other necessities. WW found the wine and rum in the back. Looked like we could sail straight to Panama by the time we were done.

To install the new pump, we did all the same things described above with a few small exceptions. The red box didn’t have to come out. My delicate little hands were of infinite use (especially when the TCM dropped the only 8 mm spanner behind the batteries). The new pump worked lovely. And, after we’d put back all the cushions and pillows, I remembered that the table was adjustable and could have been raised several feet up.

Next time.

Back to Boating

We left Robin and his Family Cabins with regret. We had a map he had given us and we followed it up to a road clearly marked (in Spanish) “Danger. No entry” and words to that effect. Robin said it was bollocks. A drunk Norwegian had fallen from a dam and died, and the hydro company was worried about lawsuits. Right beside all these dire warnings and the large obstructing gate was a sign, “Bienvenido al parque nationale El Yunque.” We decided to believe that one.

We had a lovely wander along a road lined with bamboo, palm, water trickling down rocks, and, somewhere below us invisible in the undergrowth, the splash and chatter of a small river. WW hunted orchids, but bromeliads prevailed. The flowering season for endemic orchids is December to February, but an African interloper—a ground orchid—was flowering away. It was a lovely, if brief, ramble.

We had been given instructions on how to find some petroglyphs, but they relied on a fellow being at home to charge us for parking and show us his path. He wasn’t home, so we had to forgo that pleasure. It was back to the car and off to Ponce with us.

We pulled in shortly after noon, loaded ourselves and our belongings onto Django, and discovered a head full of water…the shower/bilge pump needed attention. That dealt with, WW learned the water pump was hors combat. While you’re breathing, your boat is breaking.

We are almost ready to leave. We have provisioned. The two of us have removed and replaced the water pump twice. The first time, it worked but not perfectly; the second time, it was a brand new water pump. WW has swabbed the decks. And I? I have caught up!

Coquí Means Loud

El Yunque is a tropical rainforest of some 28,000 acres, lying in the Luquillo mountains. WW was very keen to visit the area, since about 14 endemic species of orchid grow there, as well as some introduced species.

We had booked a cabin with Phillips Family Cabins and wended our way to the southern side of the rainforest, then headed into it. A tiny, steep, curved drive led up to the Phillips Family House. A sign said, “Bang Gong for Service.” The gong was a large, rusty, circular saw blade which WW duly banged.

WW following written instructions

A slender man appeared and introduced himself as Robin. He provided bedding and two electric lights. He said the cabin had a bed, some cups, a couple of knives, and a toilet. At this last, I felt much relieved. The guidebook says: “…there aren’t any amenities to speak of (other than fresh air, great views and absolute silence, save for rainforest noises).”

Robin told us the cabin was about a quarter mile away and 300 feet up. Then he led us to the trail head and marched up ahead of us, providing a running commentary on the flora and bird life. Originally from Massachusetts, he had always wanted to grow tropical fruit. He’d tried in Florida, but frost was a problem, so he moved to PR about 25 years ago. He pointed out his starfruit, breadfruit, mangos, bananas, plantains, and something called (I think) custard fruit that tastes like pumpkin cheesecake. We browsed on a clump of delicious local raspberries, with much finer seed segments than our big fat guys. We heard a loud squawking and Robin said it was a Puerto Rican lizard cuckoo which feeds by stabbing anole lizards with its long and pointy bill.

Roughing it in the Phillips Family Cabin in El Yunque

The cabin (and where the name Cabins comes from, I dunno) was a plywood room with a plywood porch mounted on a concrete base which housed a 2,000-gallon tank for collecting rainwater. This was connected to the outdoor tap and the outdoor toilet, which flushed down into a septic field. The toilet could only be flushed about once an hour as it took that long for its cistern to refill. Robin told us, if we found a frog in the loo, we were to flush it…it would be fine. It would just emerge from the septic field, none the worse for its experience.

The view from the balcony...our outdoor facilities.
Sans frog in this photo.

Robin made the bed and told us about the coquí. The bright green tree frog is much beloved on PR. It is a vociferous little bugger, with an output of 90 decibels. These were to be our neighbours overnight. “…absolute silence, save for rain forest noises…” Hah. And we aren’t talking two or three. If not hundreds, then many dozens. We ate our sandwiches, nibbled some cheese, drank a spot of vino, and headed to our frog-loud bed. It was incredible. I awoke from time to time, and would be almost instantly lulled to sleep by the splendid frog opera being sung a cappella all around. Occasionally, a moist “plop” would rouse me, and a soloist would lift his voice from our porch. As dawn came, the frogs dropped out of the chorus one by one, and feral roosters took up the theme, accompanied by a rich variety of bird song. Little anole lizards darted about. A green-throated carib hummingbird came to inspect us.

Old San Juan

We spent the night at a little inn on Isla Verde, east of Old San Juan. In the morning, we drove in and parked in a huge indoor lot just up from the ferry and cruise ship piers; the most trafficked port in the Caribbean. Then the Cruise Director marched us smartly through the “must-see” bits. (This was because we had booked a cabin in El Yunque and the cabin owner had said we couldn’t really get to it easily after dark—about which, more later.)

We went into La Casita to pick up a map, then past the gorgeous, ornate, and very pink La Aduana (customs house), and along the road beneath the walls of the old city. We passed La Princesa, formerly a prison, and took a long look at the Raíces fountain, supposedly commemorating the Indian, African, and Spanish heritage of the island. We couldn’t distinguish the groups…perhaps blending had already taken place.

We walked through the Puerta de San Juan, the only remaining gate through the city walls. As we entered, I noticed a sign saying it is absolutely forbidden to abandon or feed cats inside La Muralla. We saw why. Dozens of cats, all over the place, and feeders set out by anonymous hands. Apparently this is the PR version of the SPCA.

Old San Juan city walls

We headed for El Morro, at the western tip of the peninsula occupied by Old San Juan. In front of it is the broad green expanse of the Campo del Morro, and clearly a favourite spot for kite flying. The kites are commercial, not like the homemade wonders we saw in the Dominican Republic; and they don’t fly as high or as far.

Almost designed for kite flying...the vast expanse in front of El Morro.

The fort El Morro is very beautiful in a belligerent sort of way. Its walls, built in 1539, are 140 feet high and up to 15 feet thick. The fort itself took 200 years to build. It held off any number of serious onslaughts by the Dutch and English, and one can see how. We wandered about its six levels for a long time, enjoying the views and the history.

The view from El Morro

After El Morro, we had one stop we very much wanted to make: Museo de Casals. Pablo Casals was born in Barcelona, but his mother was a Puerto Rican from Mayagüez. He spent the last 17 years of his life in his mother’s house and considered himself a puertorriqueño. In the tiny museum, Casals music is played continuously. There were two displays at the time we visited. The ground floor held various citations, honours, awards, medals, commendations the great cellist had received. Beyond them was a room that normally houses his piano, chair, desk, and cello. The last was off being restored as it had suffered from humidity changes. Upstairs was a photo display from Casal’s performance for JFK in the White House in 1961, when he pleaded for help in ridding Spain of the Franco regime he so detested. He played a Catalán liberation song as a finale.

The young man who had collected our $0.54 US each as admission told us the architecture students at the neighbouring Escuela des Artes Plásticas had been given the museum as a project. They were going to redesign the interior (making sure the cello gets a special enclosure with its very own climate controls), as well as planning the building’s expansion. Señora Calas has many more items she is waiting to donate. All that’s needed is space.

We headed back toward the car, stopping for lunch on the way. I think tourists expect Mexican food, since that’s all we could find. Then we took the ferry, planning to visit the Bacardi factory. We crossed the bay, only to learn the factory was closed for two days. Darn.

We returned to the car and set off for El Yunque.