Our great friends, Bob and Christina have arrived from the Great White North to explore and sail and visit with us. Their arrival was heralded (or were they just being initiated into this cruising lifestyle they were about to experience?) by some serious burgers and piƱa coladas, at the Palmas des Mar Marina Tiki Bar. It was sunset after all ?
Once the rental car was returned the next morning, it was time to leave Palmas del Mar Marina, and we paid up our bill, cast off our lines, and sailed out towards the Big Blue...
Dave's new mantra at the moment is "we shall not turn the motor on. At all. Ever!" So we tacked back and forth and along the way sailed past Monkey Island, also known as Cayo Santiago.
In the late 1930s, some researchers relocated a little over 400 Rhesus monkeys from India. Their mission was to build a wilderness preserve such that Western scientists could study the monkeys "their natural habitat." Today, the numbers ave doubled and the experiment continues.
There once was a young lad who joined the Navy, and spent many, many winters in the South, doing what sailors do best. And so our mission was to visit some ole stompin' grounds.
We sailed right into Roosevelt Roads, also known as Rosy Roads. Now mothballed, it was once the hub of an immense military establishment with a long and varied history... Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and so its territorial rights belong to the United States. this allowed the American government (back in the day) to build an airplane base in Ceiba.
Today the binoculars helped identify what used to be the mess, the airfield, the hospital, the hangars etc... Reminiscing, he was throwing around catch phrases like "tropical routines" and "morning stand-easy" which served up hot-dogs and beer, as a morning snack...
On shore leave one time, he and his Cast of Characters rented a sailboat from Rosy Roads, sailed to Green Beach (Vieques), and he then and there vowed to one day return, on his own boat. And he has. Today.
This was reason enough to celebrate with champagne, (mimosa's - it was morning after all !)
And so here's to Old Memories. And Making New Ones.
And great sunsets, of course.
Hasta La Vista, baby...