Magic Dragon Blog

We left Culebra around 8:30am for the 'Big Island' of Puerto Rico. Wind was 10-15 kts from the East, which made our route dead down wind. Sonda Vieques is pretty shallow, around 60-90', so any wind stacks up a chopof about 2-3'. There was also a 4-5' swell running from the north, so the seas were very confused. We motor-sailed the whole way to get if over with faster.

We pulled into Sunbay Marina about 1:30pm and went to our assigned slip, D-41. The marina looked very nice with new concrete docks and a paved road arount the breakwater. When we reserved the slip, Olga, the marina manager never asked what kind of power plug we had - 30 or 50 amp and the dock they put us on only had 50 amp connectors on it, and we only have a 30 amp plug. We asked at the marina office if they had an adapter they would loan or rent to us and they said, no, that they had loaned out the three they had. They suggested that we walk down to the 'Skipper Store', just on the left over the hill and buy one. So, we started walking, took one wrong turn but finally found the store. They didn't have the adapter, and neither did the other two stores nearby. So we walked back to the marina The people in the office were shocked that the store didn't have an adapter, and they offered to call West Marine for me, which is about 5 miles away, to see if they had it. The call to West Marine was typical of what we find in the states - the call was shuffled through 4 people and was put on hold 5 tmies before finally someone came on that both spoke english AND knew what we were talking about when asking about the pigtail adapter. Unfortunately he didn't know how to use the phone and disconnected the call when he went to put it on hold to look for the adapter. While waiting, we had found the adapter in the West Marine Catalog at the marina office. It was $172.00!!! We didn't call back!

Frank had another idea, he could modify a short piece of cable that we had on board if he could convert the plug end to a 50amp plug. So Frank walked back down to the Skipper Store to see if they had one; they didn't, but if they had one, it would have cost $162.00!!!! So, Frank walked back to the marinia and had a little temper tantrum in the office. When he was through yelling, they admitted that the dock we were on was the only one with only 50 Amp service and that we could move the boat to C dock! After some back and forth between us and the marina staff, we decided to move the boat over to C dock.

While Frank was out on this wild goose chase, Herb had arranged to pick up our rental car a day earlier in case we needed it, so we did that before moving the boat. After moving the boat, a cold beer and a long warm shower were in order. We went to the shower room with great anticipation, and found that there was no hot water only cold, and the cold water was not even a little warm as it has been in other islands. We went back to the boat and showered there. We guess there is a reason the marina was a lot cheaper than all of the others.

After the shower, we went to Walmart to get Mothers Day cards, a GOOD road map, something to eat, and find the US Post Office. Dinner was good, Herb had Ropas Viejo and Frank had some sort of hash, all with beans and rice and sweet plantains.