Lets face it, our first week with Picaroon hasn't exactly been plain sailing, 'welcome to boating' as Jeanso likes to cheerfully remind us. Jeanso has been Picaroons guardian here in the sleepy backwaters of Salinas, on the South coast of Puerto Rico. We first met when we came down to view Picaroon, he runs a bar, a little bohemian, right on the water front, decked out in thank you flags from all points of the compass, including Zambia, an unlikely sailing nation. He's a bubbling fountain of camaraderie, and a lifelong sailor who will be our delivery captain to get us to Fajardo where we plan to haul out Picaroon to spruce up her bottom.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We arrived in Puerto Rico, with our car after jumping through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops and shifty deals in shady places, and arrived in Salinas forty eight hours after leaving our home in Cabarete. Now you know how journeys tend to leave you a little numb and you just want to take a shower and lie down, well our journeys end was just the beginning of our welcome to boating.
We pull in at Jeansos' bar with every intention of booking into a hotel for the first night, but within fifteen minutes, after a cold beer, we look out to see our dingy being delivered to the quayside, looking decidedly floppy and derelict. Jeanso insists we haul it out, and with a little help we turn it over and it flops upside down onto the quay. The bottom is coated with a cornucopia of marine life, at least three inches thick and super-glued onto the floppy membrane which is the floor of the RIB. Jeanso hands us a giant scraper and we set about the murder of a million innocent sea creatures which have made our dingy their home for the last year. It is a gross job that often spits as we scrape, 'welcome to boating', says Jeanso. You'll be staying aboard Picaroon tonight, won't you? maybe, we say, Oh you must, and now you've the dingy all cleaned up, and here is the out board, how could we have thought about a hotel.
We load our luggage into the RIB and set off, although being my first go with this peculiar craft I fail to realise that I need to engage forward gear and rev the engine as we drift leisurely towards the mangroves. Ricardo, Jeansos sidekick, shouts enthusiastic instructions about putting the engine in gear, oh yes, and at last we're underway. We drop our first load of luggage aboard Picaroon and set off back to shore. It's only a ten minute journey back, but halfway across the bay the engine dies, and we again drift slowly into the Mangroves. We've no oars aboard, and no signal on my phone, "welcome to boating". A dog barks at us from a nearby boat and the head of its owner pops up. You need some help? Yes please. He tows us back to Jeansos bar, where the likely cause of our predicament is put down to lack of fuel. "sorry" says Jeanso I thought it was full, Welcome to boating, oh and here's your spare tank that I forgot to give you.