After a wonderful three weeks visiting the grandkids at the Jersey Shore we returned to Puerto del Rey Marina on June 14th. We had guests arriving in the BVI in a few days. Patti on June 18th and Zanda & Travis on the 19th. So we stocked up on essentials and headed east for the British VIrgin Islands!

On this trip we bypassed Palomino and made our fist overnight stop in Culebra. Followed the next day with a 34 NM run past St Thomas to Maho Bay on St John. From Maho Bay on the north side of St John is less than 10 NM across the Narrows to Road Harbour, Tortola, BVI. The Narrows has a strong current and again we were heading into the trade winds. But what should have been a 2-3 hour trip turned into a 5 hour ordeal when the starboard engine alternator belt broke. We limped into Road Harbour on one engine, making less than 2 knots headway. We secured the boat to a mooring ball just off the ferry dock and I replaced the broken belt.

Patti was arriving by ferry from St Thomas in the afternoon, so Karrie and I visited customs and immigration to clear into this British country. The clearing in process turned into another ordeal as the officials gave priority to all the ferry passengers first. We had to wait until several boat loads of incoming passengers cleared in. Only then would they process us. By the time we finished, Patti had arrived and cleared thru. She had to wait for us to finish even tho we had started hours before!

By the time we completed clearing in it was too late to go anywhere so we spend the night in Road Harbour. The next morning we took a quick trip south to the Indians, a great snorkeling spot. The Indians are a group of large “tee pee” shaped rocks with a shear drop off on the west side and a shallow reef on the east side that has abundant tropic marine life. The coral, and fish are vibrant in the crystal clear water.

After lunch we returned to Road Harbour to pick up Zanda and Travis who also were arriving by ferry. With the benefit our our coaching, they breezed thru customs inspite of the surly officials. Not wanting to spend another night in Road Harbour we took off for Peter Island only 4 NM south and were on a mooring ball in Great Harbour before sunset. We had dinner on the Willy T, the floating restaurant and bar that resembles a pirate ship with a notorious reputation for late night bawdy behavior. A good start for everyone’s island vacation!

For the next week we hit all the popular tourist destinations; The iconic giant boulders and caves at the Baths on Virgin Gorda, the low lying Bahamian like island of Anegada famous for its abundant coral reefs and lobster, Jost van Dyke home of world famous beach bars Foxy’s and Soggy Dollar, Cane Garden Bay, the Indians (again) and the Caves on Norman Island.


The Indians


The Baths


Foxy’s

Patti had to leave us on June 22nd, catching a ferry from Great Harbour on Jost van Dyke, while Zanda & Travis stayed until June 26 when we dropped them at the ferry dock back in Road Town. We cleared out of BVI Customs at the same time as we were headed back to the USVI. Once their ferry left we cruised to Druif Bay (Honeymoon Bay) at Water Island off the main harbor in St Thomas.

And then, sadly, we had to return to Puerto del Rey Marina to put the boat up for hurricane season. We had a scheduled haul out date of July 10th with a lot of hurricane prep work to do. We secured a slip on June 30th and set about removing sails, canvas, BBQ grill, etc from the boat. Anything that might blow off had to be removed and stored inside the boat.

A conflicting factor was we had promised Kate Carter that we would be back to the Jersey Shore by July 10th. So I hired a captain to move Cay de Cay from her slip to the haul out along with help from our boat’s caretaker and we made last minute reservations to fly to Florida on July 9th. So we finished prepping the boat and with a lot of anxiety on my part left her for the next four months of summer and storm season.

We would spend those next four months visiting friends, family, reuniting with cousins, National Parks, and sights around our great country. We logged over 10,000 miles on the car and our behinds before the summer was over. It was another amazing journey.

So ended our Fifth Season of cruising aboard Cay de Cay. We finally made it all the way from Florida to the British Virgin Islands, had some incredible adventures along the way, and saw a lot of memorable sights. We will return in the fall to start a new adventure and to make new memories!

Kelly defended her PHD Thesis on April 10th. It was an impressive presentation, one with the potential to save the lives of many cancer patients, and an occasion to celebrate. We stayed stateside for two and a half weeks visiting family and friends before returning to Puerto Rico on April 23rd.

Puerto del Rey is an impressive facility. It is one of the largest marinas in the Caribbean, with wet slips for 1000 yachts, dry storage racks for sport fishing boats and a large boatyard and dry storage area for hurricane storage. It is within less than an hour from San Juan and major US retail chains. It is also a great place to jump off to the VIrgin Islands!

Just off the east coast of PR are a group of islands which belong to PR, known as the Spanish VIrgins. We would pass through these islands on our way to the US Virgin Islands and then onto to the British Virgin Islands. Our first stop was Isla Palomino just a quick jump from PDR Marina. Palomino is a popular spot for local boaters because it is only 5 miles offshore. On the weekends it is inundated with small powerboats playing load music. From there we cruised to Isla Culebra and anchored behind a reef at the entrance to Ensenada Honda. Culebra has a small town and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world Playa Flamenco.

From our anchorage we could see St Thomas, USVI to our east. Leaving Culebra we would cross the VIrgin Passage, our first deep water ocean passage since we arrived in PR . But this time the passage is only 8 miles wide. But true to form we were facing a head wind with the trade winds blowing briskly. Leaving the passage we passed Sail Rock, a tall triangular rock that resembles a sailboat. Then we tucked in as close to St Thomas as possible to help block the trade winds blowing from the east. Hugging the coast we head to Great Saint James Island and Christmas Cove. Christmas Cove is where we spend our first night out fifteen years ago when we chartered our first catamaran to celebrate Kelly’s High School Graduation. It was fitting to return here after she completed her PHD!

Christmas Cove

We spent a few days at Christmas Cove before heading to St John. Every night we were entertained by a large school of giant tarpon, the brilliant silver sport fish that angler’s crave to catch. Their reflective silver scales would flash as they danced around our underwater lights.

Crossing Pillsbury Sound to St John we first stopped at Caneel Bay where we visited the town of Cruz Bay by dinghy.

Waterfront park at Cruz Bay

For the next two weeks we circumnavigated St John going clockwise around and stopping at: Maho Bay, Watermelon Bay, Haulover Bay, Otter Creek Hurricane Hole, Long Bay, Salt Pond Bay, and Great Lameshur Bay before we crossed our wake by returning to Cancel Bay.

I got to snorkel at Caneel, Watermelon, Otter Creek, and Salt Pond. At Salt Pond we hiked to the top of Rams Head point for the spectacular view.

View of Cay de Cay at anchor from trail up to Rams Head

Everywhere we anchored or moored there were schools of tarpon under the boat. Bait fish were abundant and the sea birds feasted on them in incredible aerial displays.

At our return to Caneel, we took a taxi tour of the island from Cruz Bay to see the views from land of everywhere we had just been. St John is mostly a National Park and once outside Cruz Bay, it is isolated and natural. The views of the water in every shade of blue from the hillsides are amazing. One interesting stop was the Annaberg sugar mill ruins.

Roadside view St John


Annaberg sugar mill ruins

Following our land excursion we stopped at Trunk Bay for a couple of days before leaving the USVI and heading back to Puerto Rico. On May 20th we retraced our route via Culebra, Palomino, and finally Puerto del Rey Marina. We secured Cay de Cay once again for a three week stateside visit with the grand kids.

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.

Boqueron has a reputation as a weekend hangout for college students from the University of Puerto Rico campus in Mayaguez (just to the north). And since we were visiting on a Saturday we expected it to be buzzing. We made the short four mile hop from Puerto Real to Boqueron mid morning so we could graze our way among the numerous food stands along the waterfront for lunch. First stop was for a couple cold Medella cerveza (the local PR beer). Then we sampled the local oysters that are small but delicious and salty. Several vendors had oysters and clams piled high waiting to be shucked. We also tried pinchos (barbecued meat on a skewer) and empanadillas (meat filled pastry turnovers). Everything was delicious and inexpensive.

Street Vendor Oysters and Clams


Empanadillas

We enjoyed walking around the town looking at the brightly painted buildings people watching, and munching on our latest food purchase. After stuffing ourselves we reluctantly left Boqueron. We sailed another 8 miles south to Cabo Rojo which is the far southwest corner of Puerto Rico, where we dropped anchor for the night. From here we would again be sailing east.

Street Scenes in Boqueron, PR