Sea Change

We are loving Puerto Rico, it has an easy Latin "joie de vivre" with a thin layer of American influence on top. We are staying in Fajardo, which the tourist books tell you to drive straight through, but it is interesting to see how real people live. The people do not seem to be very well off but are generally happier and more friendly than most places I have been. Passers by are often called in and happily stop and translate when our total lack of Spanish gets us in problems.

The highlight of social tourism I always enjoy is visiting the supermarket rather than the cathedrals. In our local supermarket, the isles are crowded with people; often three generations are shopping together. People move at a pace probably half way between New Zealand and the Pacific Islands but there seems to be less harried or stressed shopping than at home. The American influence shows in what's on the shelves though, the fresh fruit and vegetables would take up only 5% of the space, and processed foods about 80%.

There are several chains of enormous shops selling pharmaceuticals and beauty and cleaning products.

With a succession of hire cars we are getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Ange doesn't sit behind the wheel but keeps a very vigilant concentration on her driving otherwise. She does complain the mirrors are not well set up for her. The near death experiences seem to be decreasing but we haven't yet joined the locals in their speeding disregard for road rules and red lights.

We do stick out from the locals. Apart from being smaller (width and height) the women wear very femmy clothing with lots of jewellery; we have even seen young girls as young as 6 or 7 wearing high heel wedge shoes. Even after getting my cash out of my bra purse someone said "thank you sir" Ange has taken to wearing only pink and florals to avoid being called "sir" but it doesn't always work.

The sporty look definitely hasn't hit here , the American Lonely Planet says that there is no national interest in any form of hiking, and we have only seen one person jogging all the time we have been here. Definitely my sort of place.

Work started in earnest today with a crowd of chaps installing the watermaker. While the washing machine which arrived today will fit under the bunk it wont go through the cabin door to get there so they are going to try to get it in in bits or it will have to be in the salon. The engine covers are sitting in the cockpit and the new alternators, batteries and solar will go in next week. Hopefully our interminable shopping must come to an end as we have all the linen, kitchen equipment and boat equipment we need. After carefully ensuring they had the new anchor held for us we didn't realise until yesterday there wasn't enough of the right chain in stock so we will now be waiting until the 10th May to leave for St Thomas. Today we bought an enormous bolt of cloth to recover the settee seats, which are a disgusting beige. Hopefully we haven't bitten off more than we can chew in that.



While nothing was happening on the boat last weekend we took it out for a couple of nights. We were going to go back to Culebra but after half an hour into a stiff choppy sea we changed our minds and headed for Palermo. It was a lot less crowded than Easter and we were pleased to be able to pick up the mooring first time with only two of us on board. After a couple of days swimming lazing and just wearing sarongs we headed back and had a good sail in 18 knots which the boat seemed to handle very well. We were pleased again to be able to do it easily with just the two of us. A large electric winch raises the mainsail, and the large colour chartplotter at the helm make it all easy. All the lines come to the helm so it designed to be operated by one person if necessary.


The boat seems to feel very much like home. It is four weeks today since we left New Zealand but it seems like another lifetime. Our target of becoming small, brown agile monkeys is still some way off. While we have made most progress on the brown we are a lot fitter as well so we are hopeful. We have met a Kiwi/ American couple here who have just come back after a couple of seasons in the med and we are quite inspired.