Monday, March 18, 2013

Saturday night it rained overnight and into the morning, and we wake to a watery dawn. Note worthy, as this is the first rain we have seen in the past 3 or so weeks. This doesn’t slow us down and we are off to Fajardo, and Puerto Del Ray Marina. By 11am we have arrived at the marina, have a car rented and are off to enjoy Puerto Rico’s national pastime….Shopping! This was a shopping marathon expedition for us all, and with lists in hand and the most efficient route mapped out…we venture forth!
11-6 on Sunday…and we only stopped because the stores mostly close at 5 and 6pm, then Monday morning, by 7am we are back in the car, and off again…West Marine, Sam’s, Wal-Mart, T.J.Maxx, Home Depot, Best Buy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, CostCo…..and on and on it goes…We nearly all of these stores twice…or in the case of T.J.’s it might have been more like 4 times, but…we were looking for several somethings specifically! We missed a few things on our lists, but still managed to fill up the car trunk three times, and haul all the stuff back to the boat, once in the rain! The marina here is very large and has this wonderful service of golf-cart transport from the parking lot to the slips. The carts can seat 5 people, and they tow a large dock cart for all the stuff…it’s quite a trip speeding 40mph down the docks and making turns that make you think you are going in the drink! OK, so I might be exaggerating just a tad...about the speed, not about thinking we were going right off the dock!
Sunday night, after the first shopping marathon we stopped for dinner at the Brass Cactus, a little pub not too far away, with great food…good thing, cause no one was cooking tonight.
On Monday, in addition to shopping, we stooped at two other marinas on the eastern shore, Palmas Del Mar and Sun Bay, so we could check them out, as well as the two haul-out facilities available. We are considering laying up the boat in Puerto Rico perhaps next year, and so need to get everything lined up early…like NOW, for 2014.

Downtown Farjardo, in addition to a lovely town square we found a wonderful fabric store that carried boat awning & upholstery material, and tons of notions. Denise and I could have spent hours in this shop and the proprietor could not have been more helpful. We now have all kinds of projects planned for both boats.
After a late lunch, early dinner at PF Chang’s, we managed to hit a dive shop, and make one more Wal-Mart stop, before getting back to the marina at 8pm. Now it’s put away time, which includes using a vacuum sealer to bag up all the fresh meats and fish Denise needs for the next few charters.