We found our friends
It’s funny but when monitoring the VHF radio (which we pretty much always do) it’s almost exciting to hear the name of a boat that you know of but had parted ways with some time ago. It’s even better when you can say the same thing about hearing actual friends conversing on the radio. While on route to Boqueron yesterday, we picked up the conversation of some vessels that, although we have yet to meet the owners in person, we knew of them. The same thing happened while approaching Mayaguez when we could hear the name of a boat that had left us back in Georgetown. That particular vessel sounded like they were still quite far away so we couldn’t make contact with them. They had taken the much longer route to PR around the southern coast of Hispaniola (we went around the northern coast). I’d love to chat with them to find out how that went.
Rebecca and I were talking last evening after making it back to the boat about how interesting it is to see where certain cruisers give up on the water-based lifestyle to make a land-based home. Or, in some cases, they still reside on their boats but no longer move them. Ever. We met some people who had chosen locations in the Bahamas. We met others in Luperon and now have come across a couple of individuals in Boqueron. We speculate that it has little to do with the actual location and almost everything to do with the relationships they developed while visiting those spots. That’s our guess anyway. Perhaps we’ll have to interview some of them. 🙂
This sign, located on the seawall at the Port of Mayaguez, is pretty clear. I’m not sure if they really would have charged us for landing our dinghy but we weren’t taking any chances.
Instead we went way down to the other end of the wall where there was no ladder and climbed the five or so feet to get up.
ZTC and another German boat anchored outside the customs dock.
Good bye Mayaguez. Now that we’re legal, we’re on our way to meet our friends in Boqueron.
Safely anchored in Boqueron, we jumped in the dinghy and made our way towards shore, looking for our friends. Corey, who is on vacation visiting Jim on s/v Top O’ the World, had rented a room in a hotel for them.
This lift bridge wasn’t making it easy to get to where we wanted to go. Having someone there to actually raise it might have helped.
No worries though… we found an alternate way in.
The hotel is nice with a big pool, restaurant, bar, etc.
But more important than all of those things, it had the rarest of all cruiser desires… a shower with hot, unlimited water! And off course, we all took advantage of that!
The thunder clouds that we had read much about arrived on schedule.
Here they are heading out into the Mona.
Let’s hope that if our other friends are crossing now that they don’t run into any of these bad dudes.
This bottle of Corona is ‘almost’ as big as the bottles of Bohemia beer that we have stored on ZTC.
Jim, on the computer, and Corey, hanging out with us at a cool little outdoor bar/restaurant.
ZTC sitting calmly at anchor in the bay.
No photoshop needed. This is exactly what it looked like!
M/R
Puerto Rico was awesome….We only spent out first night there and last night, but the people were awesome, the food was unbelievable (go to this restaurant) and cheap……We found a cheap place to provision…
http://cruisingwetpaint.blogspot.com/2010/10/spanish-virgin-islands-trip-friday-day.html
Hi John
I think that’s in San Juan, right? We won’t likely be up that way but are going to check out the Spanish Virgins.
Love the pictures, as usual. I hope Rebecca didn’t have the climb the wall in those sandals and her skirt! That’s the kind of thing that makes women wear shorts under the skirt and put the skirt on once they reach a safe place to walk!
Yes, she did climb the wall while wearing the skirt.
I noticed the lovely laptop that was being used by Jim in one of the pictures. How do laptops fare at sea? Do many cruisers use netbooks (which strike me as more portable and less likely to get stolen)? What is the computer state-of-the-art amongst cruisers?
That was actually OUR laptop. Jim has a netbook. I can’t say what is the norm but I know I’d love to have an iPad now.
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