ESCAPE FROM PUERTO RICO!!!

Made it out. Winds died down saturday so the seas laid down a bit. Made a run for it sunday. Had 30 knots on the nose. 3-5 foot seas. Made it to St Johns where we are happily swinging on a mooring ball. But we really liked PR and will be going back some day.

Sunset over St Thomas looking from St John.

Really slow wifi I'm stealing from shore here. To slow to download any more.

                 WE ARE NEVER GOING TO GET OUT OF PUERTO RICO!!!!!

Woke up this morning to sustained winds in the upper 30s. Saw 48 knots at one point. Thats 55 miles per hour peeps! Force 10 on the old Beaufort Scale. Its literally blowing the coconuts out of the trees. We are fine hunkered down here but I am certainly concerned for anyone out there on anchor. There must be boats dragging all over the Caribbean today. Seas are getting to about 10 foot.

But tragedy did strike. It with with a heavy heart that I inform that one of my flip flops made a break for it last night. Blew off the dock and is probably 100 miles from here by now. Sunning itself on a beach in the Dominican Republic. Big old grin on its little flip flop face. Made it to freedom. I walked with a boat hook for hours around the marina hoping to find it afloat somewhere. Tears welling up. Going to put up some posters but I really think its over. That was a really good flip flop, too. It will be missed.

Poor quality pix but you get the idea. Crap load of wind! Didn't catch the 48 knot show on film but we have been in the 30-40 range all day. The rigging is a howlin!!

Other that that not much going on.    So lets talk about one of my favorites.....    Food.

Puerto Ricans really like their food and they are very good at it. Actually I don't remember a meal here that was not at least good if not excellent.

This is Ceviche. Raw fish and veggies cooked by the citric acid of lemons and limes. Delish! Order this at Fat Rosies (RIP) and you would get about 1/2 cup of it. This must have been over a pound of fish. Pretty cheap, too. Just a few bucks.

This is a local specialty I have never seen anywhere but Puerto Rico. Mufungo. Cook up some plantain or yucca, mash it up, add lard and spices and deep fry it. Did that make your arteries winch. It should. Its that good. Makes a nice bowl for any and all kinds of different fillers. Every place does it a bit differently. Its very good, and only about 13,000 calories per serving. If you eat to much if it you get Mufungo Butt. And then you go to Walmart. Its like a convention there.

But remember. Your on Island Time Mon. The place where we had those two aforementioned dishes was kind enough to provide some rest areas where you can nap while waiting for your lunch. And then catch a second nap while your waiting for your check. But what else does an old retired fart have to do with his day anyway. Little slice of windy paradise!

And for my buddy Bob. Met a local named Richard who sailed tornados in the 1979 olympics representing PR. If we ever got you two hooked up.....   oh boy.   Does he have some stories.


All for today. Going out to see what has blow off the boat now.

peace

M

Maybe, instead of Sailing 101 we should call the blog....   Sitting in a Marina 101.  

Write your plans in the sand they say. Then sit, and watch them blow away.    Old sailing adage.      Means make whatever plans you want but the weather is going to be the boss.

We had intended to leave for the BVI after Dawn got back on Wednesday. Had last dinner with neighbors. Returned borrowed GPS. Said last good byes and......    next morning....   30 knots on the nose...  6-8 foot seas.   No go.  Christmas winds have come late and stuck around. Its been 20 knots constant with gusts up to high 30s. Seas are going to get to 10 feet. Or as my friend Bob would say...   she's blowing stink out there!   Were here for a few more days at least.

But, there are certainly worse places to be blown into. We really like it here anyway. Kind of running out of things to do though, and with Paige being home for the next couple of weeks, we don't need the wifi and we were looking forward to getting out and actually doing some sailing.

So we set off to explore more of Puerto Rico. Got the east end down pretty well.  Heard about a surf town called Rincon on the west end. Supposed to be laid back, good vibe, like Malibu 30 years ago. Its about as far as you can go to the other end of the island without hitting salt water. So off we go. GPS, (the re-borrowed GPS), says 1 hour 45 minutes. So 3 hours later we arrive. Have I mentioned that driving here is a bit hazardous to ones health? I think I have. Anyway the center of town, which is not quaint at all, is under construction, and it is complete chaos. We finally find our way out to the surf areas. With no help at all from the virtually useless GPS. Nice spot. No waves. They need a north swell and its from the east right now. Had a not very good lunch at a beach bar and wandered into  couple of surf shops. Not much there that's for sure. Went to find our hotel.  We had reservations in the 5th ranked place in town. Top 4 were booked. Seems the rating scale drops off pretty quick here. It is a not very nice looking place in a not very nice looking neighborhood. Abandoned cars in the next lot over. To far from the beach to walk. To far from town to walk. Safely anyway. Cant even see the water. So we bag the whole plan and set off on another. Didn't even take any pictures of the town to post. Sorry.

So we hit "home" on the GPS and start following the route. Realizing at some point that it is taking us down to the south to get home. The route there was along the north side. No idea why it changed its mind. We didn't use the circumnavigate button! We were going to go to some caves the next day so to try to salvage what we could of the original plan Dawn starts looking for a hotel somewhere near where the caves are. Well, there are none. The caves are in the boonies. But along the south shore... Hilton. Score. Very nice. Great food. Very nice staff. Stayed there the night. They place is owned by the family that owns Don Q rum. A pretty decent local distillery. Happy hour with free rum drinks. They would pour you a bath of it if you asked.

Here is our "Ocean View" balcony. Look between the railings, just to the right of the center rail, yup, thats it. The ocean. That is literally all you could see of it. But it was a really nice place. Highly recommend it.

Set off next morning for the national park cave complex. Looks easy enough on the map. INT 2 to PR 128, up the hill, swoosh, your there. Well 128 will not even register in the GPS. Should have been a clue there. We find it and start up. Its gets very rural very fast. This is the most winding curving road I have ever been on. Road to Hana is nothing. This is 1 1/2 lanes wide and there is not a stretch of straight road more that 100 feet long. Most places you couldn't see a car 50 feet in front or behind. 20 MPH max. 2 hours of the most white knuckle driving I have ever done. And that even counts racing school! This road was really not meant to be driven. Kept thinking were almost there were almost there. We weren't. Going 20 miles an hour makes for very slow progress. We went up over the top of PR through some spectacularly gorgeous mountains. Sheer cliff down one side. Side view mirror a foot from the cliff wall on the other. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I was sweating bullets. Only met a couple local cars coming down the other way and thats a good thing. There is no room to pass. Cant believe we got through it with no damage on the rental car. The vistas were spectacular but there was no place to stop and take a photo. You would get plowed into if a car or truck came by. Its like the death road in Peru. We were totally spent by the time we finally found the cave park. Seems everyone gets there by coming down from the north side. NOBODY drives up from the south.

The caves were quite something. Not worth the death ride but quite impressive. Caverns that you could put a 17 story building inside of. 5th largest underground river system in the world. Seemed odd to find that on an island thats 40 by 100 miles.

Its difficult to capture in a photo. The inside of this was massive.

Thought this formation looked like the pirate captain in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The guy with octopus tentacles for a face.

The river is down at the bottom of this sink. Those are tree roots that hang down over a hundred feet. They look like climbing ropes.

The place is also home to over 1/2 million bats. They sleep during the day. Dawn was glad to hear that. They used to export bat guano from PR. All kinds of usefull products made from it including cream for facials.  

Nice huh?     Hey hun, got you something for our aniversary.   Some bat poo to rub on your face.       Oh yeah, you'll get you some luvin 2 nite fo shur!

All for now. Just waiting on a weather window.

peace

M