Boqueron, Puerto Rico
18.01.299N
67.10.621W
Land Ho! Puerto Rico! As soon as the sun set yesterday, you could see the glow from Puerto Rico on the horizon.
As you may recall from yesterday's posting, we were making pretty good time on our transit from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. In fact, we were doing so well that we needed to slow down. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to slow a boat down when you're traveling too fast? First, we turned off the engine. Then we reefed the jib. Then we reefed the main (we began to wonder whether it would or not with the pucker at the bottom). Then we reefed the jib again and pulled the main in completely. Then the wind died down and we had to let everything back out again. When the wind finally quit all together, we pulled everything in and turned on the engine running at 1000 RPM's and still doing about 3.5-4 kts. Then the tide started pushing us to shore. At that point, the sun was starting to rise so we kept on going. We set our anchor at 7:45 am, about as exact to 48 hours as you could get.
We were the first into the harbor and spotted a large catamaran in the anchorage. We circled around and then hailed Blue Star to wake up Pam & Charlie. We had first met them 3 years ago when they were in Jacksonville tied up to a slip just down from our friends, Fred & Geri. They've been in Trinidad/Tobago and other southern islands for the past 3 years and are on their way back to Jacksonville to replenish the cruising kitty.
Two of the boats traveling with us elected not to slow down but to continue on to Ponce further down the southern side of Puerto Rico. Four of us entered into Boqueron within 2 hours of each other; the fifth, a couple of hours after that; and finally Moon Goddess came in just before sundown and promptly ran aground. They backed off without difficulty and were able to anchor not far from us.
After a quick chat with Pam & Charlie, we hit the rack to make up for the missed sleep. We spent a quiet afternoon, washing the salt off the boat, putting our transiting gear away, and taking much needed showers ourselves. Except for Moon Goddess, who couldn't resist the throbbing beat of the local music establishments, the rest of us elected to stay on our respective boats and call it an early night.
Tomorrow we'll figure out how to check in. The cruising guides say its just a matter of calling in but others believe that since 9/11, it is necessary to physically go over to Mayaguez to check in. We'll sort it out in the morning.
