Puerto Rico Holidays  N17:56.91   W66:11.17

We arrived at midnight on Saturday 21^st February at San Juan Airport and were met by Mum and Duggie. After an interesting ride along the highway and then a hairier and very wet ride at 1.30am in Doody the dingy, across to the island where Swiftwing was anchored, we had arrived. For the next couple of days we did your typical holiday things of going to the supermarket and laundry (everything was soaked after the moonlight trip aboard Doody). On the Tuesday we rented a wreck and went to El Yunque National forest centre, to see the rain forest. After a picnic at Coco falls, the arrival of several tour bus loads of gays off the cruise ships (lots of buff men holding hands for photos-Puerto Rico is quite liberal) we went further into the forest and climbed El Yunque which is 3,496ft. We climbed through rainforest and then cloud forest to the top where there was a lovely view of clouds but at least we had left the tourists behind.

The next day we got the small ferry from the marina to the mainland and then took a bigger ferry to Culebra, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands.  Here we took a bus to Flamenco Breach which is probably one of the best we’ve been to here for some swimming and snorkelling.  The only bird life we saw here was two geese terrorising the sunbathers.

Then we sailed to Cayo Santiago for the night. It’ also known as monkey island as in 1939 a collection of Rhesus Monkeys from India where released here for controlled observation.  Having gotten over TB, near starvation due to lack of funding in WW2 and the like, there are now over 700 (apparently, don’t know where they all live-it’s a small island) who are studied throughout their life.

You’re not allowed on the island and apparently the monkeys bite. Here’s one that chased his mate into the sea and is now sitting on a rock. They make a lot of noise and sound like they are wreaking the place! We went on a Doody adventure to get closer but not too close. The next morning we saw the scientists arrive with the provisions which seemed to make the monkeys very excited.

The next day we sailed down to Puerto Patillas which as a bay protected by reefs. We didn’t go ashore here but we did provide a focus for the jet skis to go round while we were at anchor.

On the Saturday we sailed to Puerto de Jobos which is on the south coast and in the Jobos Bay National Marine Estuarine Research Reserve, which is 3,000 acres of mangrove swamps and atolls. It’s the best hurricane hole in Puerto Rico. After two rather rolly nights it was very calm here but not quiet. They like to party in Puerto Rico, Thursday to Sunday.  We went for a wander through the town and everyone was very friendly. After going to the marina for a drink we stayed there for tea as the food smelt so good. Mum and I had the local crab and rice- It was very tasty.  The other good thing was that the waitress had stopped doing solo karaoke to an empty bar at this point!

After a short sail we arrived at Playa de Salinas. Very busy area at the weekends with power boats, jet skis and even a few intrepid canoeists.  There’s not a lot in the town but we did find some wifi in a bar/restaurant called Drakes, open Thursdays to Sundays, so we were lucky as it was Sunday evening by the time we located it (right outside the marina gates)

The next day we did laundry, filled up with water using many small bottles (luxury sailing at it’s best) and then in the afternoon went on A Doody adventure around the mangroves and over to the Cayos de Ratones-the party islands we had passed the day before.  This was relatively wide openish stretch of water but Doody did us proud and only choked up once. When we got there, there was a party going on but we were welcomed and given drinks. It was a family reunion that they have every year for their Mum’s/Grannies’ Birthday (She wasn’t there as she’s now 93.)  They were Puerto Rican and many lived in and around New York and Connecticut areas. Extra celebrations were going on as major snow storms in New York had cancelled flights and they had longer to stay! 

Then the Policia boat that we had been seeing quite a lot of turned up.  It does look quite cool.  Dougie didn’t want to leave as Doody wasn’t carrying all the regulation stuff for American waters (spare feuel,whistle,lifejackets,lights etc) but it turned out a lot of the party were Police or similar and the boat was skippered by a nephew of one of the party. They moored up and had some juice out of their cool box. After a swim there we headed back to Swiftwing.

The next day we hired a car and went to the next big town which is Ponce.  This has a lot of impressive Spanish Colonial houses, plazas and sights to see.

  We went 1st of all to the Plaza las Delicas and to the Parque de Bombas which wasn't.to difficult to find. Originally an agricultural exhibition hall, built 1882, it was then the fire station and is now the tourist information. It also houses a display about the fire station and has an impressive display of Vejigantes, which are the carnival masks made out of papier'-mache.  Then we went in search of actual crafts and found a large indoor fruit market with good food stalls where we all had a good lunchfeed and eventually we found a craft market selling hand made chocolates, hand made leather goods, hand rolled cigars(which Will bought for special occasions he foresees in his life) and I finally found a lady making the masks of which I bought the least scary looking one. It is a brightly colour cross between a friendly chicken and a multi horned cow!

Then we headed off to the Guanica Dry forest reserve where we went for a very hot walk on one of the trails and then headed off to the beach for a cool down.  The giant cactus trees are called the ‘Spanish trees' .                       We also saw dragon flies, butterflies and moths, The place also smelt like a very nice coffee house as a lot of the trees are related to the coffee family.  On the way home we filled up with provisions, but not gas for the cooker so I can officially tell you that it is possible to cook normal pasta in the microwave and it comes out ok.

On Wednesday we took the car to go adventuring in the mountains.  Maps aren’t good here and it was quite confusing when the good road that was going to where we wanted to be just ran out. It started again in about 15km but you just had to find it!  We went to the big caves where the Rio Came runs, which is the 3^rd biggest subterranean river in the world.  We went on a tour down to the Cueva Clara via a 200ft high cave. We had to wear these nice hats for safety reasons.  There was lots of educational fun and the caves were pretty impressive although slightly disappointed as some of them seem to have been closed since the guide book was written.  There was also and old steam train left over from the times of the sugar plantations.

The next port of call was the Arecibo Observatory as seen in James Bond’s Goldeneye. Our second James Bond sight as the hotel from Goldfinger was visible from our 1^st anchorage. It’s the biggest radio-telescope in the world, weighing over 600 tonnes. Its set in a sinkhole and is involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.  It also listens to pulsars and quasars (that’s the music of the stars apparently). Its observed Mercury , pictured asteroids and discovered the 1^st extra solar planets. According to the informative video it all looks very complicated involving graphs, a bad dress sense and the odd mullet.

Then it was off home to Swiftwing via a detour in deliverance country (the map was very different to the actual road) and no stops this time at rusty busses for pies.

Yesterday it rained so we had a BBQ. It was very good and watched Whiskey Galore. Due to weather conditions it was perfect conditions for frying the mosquitoes with the electric fly swatter-banned in the UK so it must be good!  Today I have mostly been doing this so no complaints. Tomorrow we’re off home

Sarah (many grammatical and spelling mistakes edited by Will). (further errors traced and corrected by Douglas)