Puerto Rico,  Boqueron  18:01.00 N    67: 10.50 W

We stayed in Puerto Rico for just over one month and we both enjoyed it so much that I thought I’d do a complimentary blog to Sarah’s, to fill in some of the details.

 Puerto Rico….Isla del Encanto… the Island of Enchantment was discovered in modern times by The Admiral of all Oceans, Christopher Columbus on 19^th November 1493. The island was originally named ‘Bautista’ in honour of John the Baptist and the principal port was named Puerto Rico meaning Rich Port.

The island is 110 miles long by 35 miles wide and is home to 4,000,000 people. Yes that is four million in an area smaller than Argyll. Legend has it that the Tainos Indians who were here when Columbus arrived, between 30,000 to 60,000 of them, were wiped out by western diseases, whooping cough and smallpox,  and the Spanish Conquistadors who wanted to enslave these peaceful Indians.

However a DNA survey carried out in 2004 contradicts this entirely with four fifths of the population being able to trace their DNA directly to the Tainos Indians. Apparently one fifth have traces of African DNA from the days of slavery but this as far as we could see is not borne out by the cross section of the population as there are virtually no Afro-Caribbeans here.

On 25^th July 1898 during the Spanish-American War, American troops invaded the island with the loss of fifty American and fifty Spanish troops. No Puerto Ricans were injured. America claimed the island as a war prize and the island was ceded to the USA at the Treaty of Paris. In 1917 all Puerto Ricans were granted American citizenship and that is still the case today with many Puerto Ricans going to the states for their working lives then returning to PR for their retirement.

One of the reasons that we were so taken by the place is the out and out friendliness of all concerned. We have never waved so much from the boat in all our lives and when ashore everyone has a smile and a hello and are interested in chatting.

Eating out was almost as cheap as cooking on board so we ate ashore frequently. The main industry here is fishing, with Tuna, Lobster and Conch being the main catch. In fact lobster is so plentiful here that it is cheaper than beef. When eating at one of the little restaurants or mobile vans, the fare was always the same with Esculadillos (imagine a Cornish pastie made of filo pastry) being the main choice of the locals. There is usually a selection of Lobster,shrimp,conch,fish,chicken or beef, each one being almost a meal on it’s own and costing £1. Bev and I ate ashore the other day for £3.80 for both of us.

With being part of America the island benefits from the first world necessities as regards hospitals, schools and basic infrastructure. There are three lane highways connecting the major cities and on the journey to drop Sarah and Will off at the airport I found myself driving on a seven lane highway. A nightmare you might imagine but the driving here is amiable and good natured though a little chaotic as there is no lane discipline. There are virtually no crossings on the roads and the reason for that is that as soon as a pedestrian even looks like he may think of crossing then the queue of traffic comes to a halt. We Brits could learn a lot from the American style of driving, I’m pretty sure that Road Rage has never been heard of here.

After the departure of Sarah and Will we stayed on at Salinas for another week attending a cruisers Pot Luck and suffering from a cold that we were initially blaming on Sarah until we found the culprit, an American called Randy. Hey he could have been called Scooter or Elmer! We were sad to leave Salinas but we must make our way west to be in the States for May.

We sailed initially to Cayos de Cana Gorda or Gilligan's Island as the Americans call it, another State park with thousands of acres of mangroves which make for fantastic flat anchorages. We stayed there for a couple of days as Bev had by this time come down with the same nasty cold. We then had a super sail around the south west corner to Bahia de Boqueron, a lovely bay encircled by sandy beaches. Then it was on up north to Mayaguez, a town of one hundred thousand people and an uninspiring industrial bay, to clear customs and Immigration and set off on our first ocean passage in over a year, the 370 miles (you cannot take a direct route because of huge reefs) to the Turks and Caicos Islands.