From Cabo Rojo we would cruise the entire southern coast of Puerto Rico and then a short way up the eastern coast to Puerto de Rey Marina where we had a slip reservation for April 5th. We would leave the boat at PDR Marina while we fly back to the states to attend Kelly’s PHD Thesis Defense.

Puerto Rico is a mountainous island like the Dominican Republic and shares similar weather patterns, such as the night time lee that calms the trade winds in the morning. Except PR is a smaller land mass and its mountains are not as tall as the DR, so the weather is not as severe and the coastline is much friendlier than the DR. PR has an abundance of anchorages and islands on the south coast. There are lots of opportunities to drop anchor in picturesque and safe harbors. The decision is not “how far must we go today”, but rather “how far do we want to go” and which beautiful place must we pass by?

To take advantage of the night lee, we would continue the travel routine we used traversing the DR, up early at first light in the morning travel for a few hours, then drop the anchor before lunch time. Leaving Cabo Rojo, we had two weeks to put about 125 nautical miles under our keel. Very doable with time to enjoy the journey.

We decided to make Cayos De Cana Gorda our first stop, about 21NM east of Cabo Rojo, bypassing the bioluminescence bay Bahia Fosforesente. We had visited it during on of our business trips to PR several years ago. While the bioluminescence is amazing, we were concerned about the enclosed bay surrounded by mangroves might be buggy. So we passed on a second visit.

Cayos De Cana Gorda is known to the locals as Gilligan's Island because they thought it looked like the island from the old TV Series. It is a popular state park where the locals come to picnic and swim in the shallow waters around the island. There are colorful pavilions scattered among the lush mangroves through out the park. Since we arrived on Sunday the island was very crowded so we decided to spend another day here and visit it on Monday.

Gilliigan’s Island

A cruiser from another boat in the anchorage, Chuck Drake on a Manta 42 catamaran, stopped by our boat to chat with us. He mentioned there were two places in the harbor for lunch, one was an upscale resort and the other a casual beach hut grill. He was headed to Ponce to dock his boat while he visited the states for a while. He was concerned about getting a slip as the Ponce Yatch Club had not fully recovered from Hurricane Maria. Since we had planned to stop at Ponce for fuel, we were interested in the condition of the marina. Later we called the marina and learned they did not have any fuel available. Ponce is the second largest city in PR and if they didn’t have fuel this could be an issue as there are not a lot of other marinas on the south coast. The next marina was in Salinas, another place we had planned to stop and a call to them reveled that they had fuel! Whew!

The following day we visited Gilligan’s Island and went to the beach shack for lunch. As promised it was very eclectic, but unfortunately not open for business as they were still undergoing hurricane repairs and had not yet passed their health inspection.

Beach Grill

So our second and only other choice was the upscale resort, where we had a nice meal in the open air restaurant overlooking the palm tree lined beach and pool.

Resort

On Wednesday we sailed for Isla Caja De Muertos, an interesting island about 6 miles southeast of Ponce, PR. Caja De Muertos is also know as Coffin Island, either because it is shaped similar to a coffin or because of the pirate Jose Almeida who buried his wife there. Coffin Island is also a popular destination for the fast ferry boats that bring tourist to the beach here. The island has a 300 foot tall hill with an old light house on top. We wanted to walk up to the lighthouse, but could not find a safe place to land the dinghy. The ferry dock was still severely damaged and there were large rocks off the beaches.

The next day we sailed to Salinas, arriving mid-morning, waited for a large sailboat to leave the fuel dock and topped up with precious diesel. We inquired about a dock at the recovering marina, but did not like the only two slips that could accommodate us, so we anchored out in the harbor. We were greeted by three dolphins cavorting around us. We dinghy back into the marina and found a waterside restaurant just outside the marina property where we had empanadillas and cervasa for lunch. The waitress would clean the plates by throwing scraps into the water where a school of large tarpon had a feeding frenzy on the pickings. Frigate birds with their large wing span would circle above and sweep down to scoop up some scraps.

One of our guidebooks recommended using Salinas as a point to rent a car and explore PR and so we did. The marina recommended a local guy who rented us a car for $50 the next day. No paperwork, no license required, fifty cash and here’s the car. Just bring it back.

More than ten years prior, the company I worked for had a joint venture in Isabella, in the NW corner of PR. I would visit there for two weeks twice a year for several years to mentor the young engineers. Of course Karrie came on those trips. We stayed a a beautiful and secluded beach side resort nestled under a high cliff. It was tough duty! We revisited there with our rented car and had lunch at the beach side open air restaurant. It was as lovely as we remembered it. Unfortunately an afternoon rain squall came through and we didn’t get to walk around the property much. On the return drive to Salinas we took some back roads to visit places we used to go and reminisce. It was fun driving down memory lane.


Sunday we made a short hop to Cayos Caribe in Boca Infierno. We took the inside route between the mainland and a string of small mangrove islands. Boca Infierno offered the final good anchorage prior to completing the south coast and turning the “corner” at Punta Tuna to go north along the east coast.

Monday, April 1st we made the 35NM trip around Punta Tuna to Cayo Santiago, Monkey Island. Monkey Island is inhabited by a colony of rhesus monkeys used for scientific research. The foliage on the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria (which was a direct hit here) but has not recovered because the large colony of monkeys (which miraculously 80% survived) feed on the new growth.

Monkey Island was only 17NM from Puerto del Rey Marina, but since our slip reservation started on April 5th, we stayed here for a few days watching the monkeys roam the island and climb among the barren trees.

Monkey Island

April 5th we travelled our final leg to Puerto del Rey Marina and secured Cay de Cay in our slip. Saturday April 6th we caught an early taxi ride to San Juan International Airport to return to the continental US and attend Kelly’s PHD Thesis Defense in Houston, TX.