Month: March 2025

We had a fabulous downwind sail on March 21st as we moved from Puerto Patillas back to our little anchorage spot near the power plant (and about 4nm away from Marina de Salinas). We hoisted the main sail (which we haven’t seen since the Bahamas) and then got our spinnaker out for the first time this season. There was just enough wind to keep the spinnaker full and to move us along at a decent speed. It was a lovely morning and we arrived at our anchorage before lunch.

In the morning (March 22), we motored the 4nm to the marina. Salinas is a very popular destination for cruisers and the bay is full of permanent and temporary boats. It was a bit challenging to find the path through all the anchored boats but luckily a catamaran went in just before us so we followed it in! The marina was also quite confusing and of course they never answer the radio when you hail them. Mark ended up phoning them to get a slip assignment while I circled the boat in front of the marina. Once we found our slip, we had loads of help getting into it. The wind had picked up a lot (first windy day we’ve had since arriving in PR) and it was pushing us into the slip. The 2 marinas we’ve been to in PR have these fairly narrow slips with very short finger docks. We have to go bow in (because we can’t get off the stern of our boat) so it is a bit of a challenge to get on and off!! The owners of sailboat right next to ours helped us get secured and also gave us a ride up to the grocery store that afternoon. They were super helpful and gave us lots of advice about restaurants and shopping in the area.

The marina is quite nice and very busy. It has an event space that was rented out on March 22 for a wedding. We had dinner that night at the little bar on-site and watched the wedding reception get underway. There is also another restaurant onsite and a little pool. We explored the area on Sunday – walking along the streets near the marina. We found lots of restaurants and a little bakery! It was great to just walk around a bit without having to dinghy ashore first! I have to keep reminding myself that we can just get off the boat whenever we please – don’t have to untie and lower the dinghy and put out the boarding ladder. It’s such a treat and we’re slowly finding our land-legs again!

Our plan for the next 2 weeks is to clean up to v-berth and to get a few jobs done. So far we’ve not done much. The wind has really piped up and my deck work (washing the deck) has been delayed a bit. Mark and I have both been on the mend – my back is acting up and Mark’s just not feeling himself. Today (March 25th) we’re both feeling much better and hopefully when the wind dies down tomorrow, we can start our dock jobs!

8 years ago when we first sailed to the Bahamas, I had this vision of what a Caribbean beach would look like – sandy shore edged by palm trees!! Well that’s not exactly what I found! The Bahamas have beautiful white sandy beaches but the palm trees, if there are any, are about 3 feet tall and scrawny! Today (March 20) we walked on a long beach with so many palm trees – it was crazy!! Nice way to spend our last day at Puerto Patillas.

We arrived at Puerto Patillas on Sunday, March 16 after an easy 16 nm motor. The anchorage was pretty full with about 10 boats anchored close to the town. This area is very picturesque and the bay is fairly well protected from most wind (although we haven’t had much wind in the last couple of weeks). We did some exploring of the area – dinghied over to the reef on Monday and saw a manatee’s nose pop out of the water. We walked the main road of the town on Tuesday. It’s a small town with lots of restaurants but not much else. We did manage to find a little variety store and bought some milk! We went back to town on Wednesday and had lunch out! I’ve discovered this dish called mofongo – basically mashed plantain that’s shaped into a bowl and stuffed with veggies and meat (I like chicken). I first saw it in the DR and tried my first mofongo in Puerto Real. Mark and I both had mofongo for lunch yesterday and it was very good!!

Today was our beach explore day. We watched these 2 men bring in a fishing net onto the beach. They’d managed to catch a few small fish in the net. We also saw lots of crabs on the beach!! Scared quite a few of them back into their holes and into the water. It was great to walk along the beach and it’s the first good beach we’ve found in Peurto Rico. It was a nice way to end our visit to this area!! Tomorrow (March 21) we’ll be sailing (hopefully – good east wind is predicted) back to Salinas. We will be going into the Marina de Salinas on Saturday where we’ll get some work done before Evelyn arrives on April 6. We’re hoping to get some of our storage jobs done during the next 2 weeks.

We’ve now been in Puerto Rico for over 2 weeks and we’ve travelled a whopping 70nm. It’s such a switch from the rest of our season where we were determined to get as far as possible as quickly as possible. This relaxed pace definitely has its benefits!

In my last post I said we were anchored at Gilligan’s Island – well it’s actually Guilligan. There was a ferry that took people over to the little islands but they no longer work and are stored on shore. We went for lunch on March 10 at this little beachside place and right in the parking lot was one of the old ferries with the name proudly displayed!! Our lunch spot was really cool – kind of rundown but the food was awesome. Mark and I had lunch with Sharron and John (Sundog) and we were joined by 2 Americans anchored near us. After lunch we took Sharron and John back to their boat and said our goodbyes. Sundog left in the morning (March 11) and we spent 2 more days in our anchorage before we also decided to leave.

It might seem funny to be killing time but that’s exactly what we’re doing now. We’ve booked a slip at the Marina de Salinas for a month starting March 22 so we have a home base when Evelyn and Caroline visit. It was cheaper to get a whole month than to pay by the day for the 5 or 6 days we need when Evelyn and Caroline are with us. We’re also exploring the south area to find good places to visit with the girls. So far we went to Ponce – to do some grocery shopping. We stopped there on March 13 and anchored near the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club. Ponce is the second largest town in PR (San Juan is the largest) and it was very busy!! From Ponce we crossed over to Isla Caja de Muertos (Coffin Island). This island was a tourist attraction with a hike to a lighthouse, snorkeling, a museum and of course a few beaches. Puerto Rico had an earthquake several years ago and this island has not been maintained since that time. We only stayed one night because the wind direction changed and it became very rolly and bouncy.

On Friday March 14 we pulled up anchor and were headed for Puerto Patillas. Mark decided to try fishing and we had 3 hits on the line – 2 barracuda (unfortunately) and one that didn’t get hooked! We were about 6 – 7 nm away from our destination when the wind picked up to 20kts on the nose (this was not predicted)!! We decided to bail on our Patillas anchorage and instead headed to the islands near Salinas. As we made our u-turn, another fish grabbed our line and man did it hit big. The line went streaming out and Mark had to quickly go out on deck to grab the fishing rod. We were now going downwind in 20kts with no sails up and were still doing almost 4 kts of speed. I had to turn the boat perpendicular to the wind to slow us enough for Mark to reel in this fish (which I was hoping was not another barracuda). After a bit of struggle, this 11 lbs trevally came aboard. Mark subdued the fish while I got us back on course. We deployed our jib and sailed – no motor – for the first time since Feb. 27 when we crossed to the DR!! It was wonderful but short lived because we only had about 4nm to go to our anchorage for the night.

So here we are – anchored in a little bay near a power plant. It’s super peaceful and calm. We’ll be here for at least a day or so. We have a week before we go into the marina so no need to rush off!

One of the best parts of cruising is meeting new people and the next best thing is exploring new places with those people!! After a wonderful happy hour (Friday, March 7) aboard Desert Loon (Greta and Brian), we all hopped in our dinghies to explore the Phosphorescent Bay. We were 4 dinghies – us, Greta and Brian (Desert Loon), Matt and Jonathan (Next Chapter), and Sharron and John (Sundog). This bay is special because it is full of bioluminescence (shows up as solid blue light) that reacts to movement. As we dinghied around the little bay in the dark, blue jets streamed from our motor prop wash. Sharron, Matt and Jonathan all went for a swim and made blue light trails – it was super cool!!

On Saturday (March 8), Mark and I decided to go explore the town of La Parguera. We sent out an invite to the 3 other boats and were joined by Matt, Sharron and John. Matt has a large dinghy (with a 25hp motor!!) so we all headed in together in his dinghy. The town was super interesting and really nice. There was a sidewalk art show going on and most of the waterfront area was closed to traffic. We walked around the downtown, did a little bit of grocery shopping and then headed back to the dinghy. We decided to have lunch at a restaurant close to our anchorage and Greta and Brian picked up Jonathan so we were 8 for lunch. We had good food and great conversation and finally headed back to our boats around 2pm. Our anchorage was super busy with loads of small power boats taking people to Cayo Caracoles (which is a very popular weekend spot). Music played and boats zoomed past at high speeds. It was a long afternoon but everyone finally went home for dinner!

It’s now Sunday March 9th and our merry group of 4 boats has finally reached the end of our travel time together. Next Chapter pulled up anchor early – around 7 am. They are headed all the way to Trinidad this season to haul out. Desert Loon left the anchorage just before us at 8:30am. They are headed to Grenada to haulout this season. We have moved a grand total of 12nm today. We’re now anchored in a very peaceful spot with a fun name – Gilligan’s Island!! Sundog has joined us here so we still have their company for a few more days. Sundog is planning to go the BVIs and then they will store their boat at the same yard as us (Marina Puerto Del Rey).

We now have the luxury of moving along the south coast of Puerto Rico at a super slow pace. It’s such a welcome change from what we have been doing as we made our way here. We left Puerto Real on Wednesday March 5 and motored a grand total of 5 nm to Boqueron. We’d read that this town was a must see for the west coast so off we went. We left Next Chapter, Desert Loon and the newly arrived Sundog after a great happy hour aboard our boat on Tuesday night.

As we made our way into the Boqueron anchorage on Wednesday afternoon, we noticed another ketch! As we passed by it, the owners yelled to Mark (who was on the bow getting ready to anchor) “is that a Whitby?” Sure enough the other ketch in the anchorage was a Whitby too!! First thing Thursday morning we dinghied over to the other Whitby and had a nice chat with the owners. Their boat was slightly older then ours and not in the best of shape. They commented on how nice Crimson Kathryn looked (which made us feel pretty good). After our chat we went ashore to explore the town of Boqueron. I can see why it is a place to visit – very quaint with lots of tourist spots. We walking around the downtown area and found the restaurants and bars all closed up (it was too early for them). The downtown was very small and really only had 2 interesting streets. We crossed over a little lift bridge to the beach and walked along there for a bit. By mid morning, we’d seen just about everything and we’d heard from Next Chapter and Sundog. Both boats were heading to La Parguera on the south shore so we decided to pull up anchor and follow them.

We were anchored in a very cool spot just west of La Parguera by about 2pm and had a really nice swim. Next Chapter anchored beside us late that Thursday afternoon and it was a super quiet evening. Today (March 7th) we went for a dinghy ride with Matt and Jonathan (Next Chapter) to explore the mangroves and Isla Guayacan. This island is a wildlife refuge. The mangrove rivers were very interesting and we saw lot of little jellyfish and fish. We were looking for monkeys (they’re supposed to live on this island) but we didn’t see any.

We’ve now moved slightly farther east and have anchored with Sundog at Cayo Caracoles. Next Chapter has joined us here and even Desert Loon has made it from Puerto Real. Looks like another happy hour tonight!!

Puerto Real has proved to be an excellent safe harbour and a great first anchorage to explore the west side of PR. We’ve had some time to relax and recover from all the moving we’ve done this season. Now it’s time to explore!

We are anchored close to the Marina so have access to the dinghy dock and other marina facilities (including laundry!). Our first day here (Feb. 28) we came ashore and walked to the grocery store. It was great to be on land again and to go for a good walk. The grocery store was fairly small with a limited selection of produce but we were able to get enough for a few days and to pick up some snacks for our first happy hour here. Part of the reason we came to Puerto Real was that Matt and Jonathan (Next Chapter) were anchored here. We met them at Ocean World so it was great to join them aboard their catamaran and get caught up. Greta and Brian (Desert Loon) also came to this happy hour!!

On March 1st we decided to walk the other side of town (it’s not very big!). The main road through town is very narrow and the cars park on the sidewalk (I use that term loosely) so it can be a bit dangerous to walk around. We did find a little bakery and picked up some PR desserts that were very yummy. It’s been really hot and humid here so our walk was fairly short. That night Mark and I organized dinner out at the marina restaurant. There were eight of us at dinner – Desert Loon, Next Chapter and EOS. We met EOS (Mattie, Brendan and Mattie’s father whom we haven’t met because he’s been sick with the stomach bug) at the park in DR. It was a fun night with great food, drink and conversation.

We’ve booked a car for March 4th so we can drive up to Mayaguez (a bigger town north of here) so we can do some better shopping there. I think Matt is coming with us. Our other friends on Sundog (Sharron and John) are crossing to PR as I write this so I’m sure there will be another happy hour in the near future. I think Next Chapter and Desert Loon will be leaving on Wednesday – both boats are heading to Grenada so they still have some distance to go.