April 1-2, 2001 -- Leaving Samana? We thought we had a pretty good opportunity to cross the Mona today. However, the Coast Guard screwed up their Navtex broadcast again! So we didn't have the correct off shore report available to us. We invited everyone over to review charts, weather and have a potluck lunch. Kokopelli, Pamela, and Masade attended. After lunch, we charted out the two options we had. One was to follow the guide, which we dubbed the 'dog leg route'; and the other was to make a straight shot, which the guide said we could do in the right conditions. After lunch, everyone returned to their boats to get ready to get underway. We all tuned in to Herb to get his take on the weather around the Mona Passage. Unfortunately, thanks to some Italians having a radio conversation over top of Herb, we could not hear him! We decided not to leave because we did not have sufficient weather information. We went to dinner with Sue and Leon from Masade instead. At dinner we saw Mack and Julia from Journey. We chatted with them for a little while before heading back to the boats. April 2 was pretty much a repeat of April 1, except that we didn't have a potluck lunch or go out to dinner!

April 3-4, 2001 -- Samana to Boqueron On April 3, we did a repeat of April 2. The difference was this time, we got proper Navtex and we could hear Herb. What he had to say wasn't promising. He reported that the weather window would be closing in 24 hours due to an increase in the winds in the Mona Passage. We all had a radio conference and I stated my belief that this was not a weather window traveling at 5 knots as it would take 36 hours to cross. Everyone else did weather by committee and by consensus decided that they could stomach 20 knot winds in the Mona for the few hours they would be between wind shadows. We said goodbye to everyone as they pulled up their anchors and left. After the last boat passed us, I walked into the main saloon and said to Michael, "You know, if we leave now, we will be in Boqueron by noon tomorrow." Once we were released from traveling 5 knots with everyone else, this became a suitable weather window for us. We pulled up anchor at 2200 GMT and headed for Boqueron. Within an hour, we passed the lead boat and continued on our way. It was a fairly comfortable crossing, all things considered. It was a bit lumpy in places, especially as long as we traveled on the 'Canned Iguana' shoals. The water depth would go from 50 to 60 feet to 300 feet and back again in about 10 minutes. This caused the seas to become confused. However, after that, the seas settled down into one direction, about 50 degrees off our bow. The wind never did swing fully out of the north east. However, it blew East for most of the trip so we did get a little stability out of it. We dealt with a few squalls, though none of them hit us directly. Periodically the winds would hit 20 for about 15 minutes before dropping off to their customary 10 to 15 knots. As long as we were in VHF range with Masade, we maintained a radio check in with them. However, we did not switch to SSB due to the fact that it causes the autopilot to malfunction.. We were riding fairly comfortably and did not want to inadvertantly hand steer off our course while talking with them since we can't use the SSB and the auto pilot at the same time. Just as Bruce's book states, after we cleared Isla Desecho, or Al Devekio as Mike calls it, we came into the wind shadow of Puerto Rico. The winds died and the seas dropped quickly. On our way in to Boqueron, we saw an enormous shark! At first we saw a what looked like a big board sticking up in the water, then it started moving toward us and we saw that it was a 15 foot shark as it came past us to check us out. It was way cool to see one, especially since we were in the boat and not in the water. After the shark got bored, I looked at everyone else and asked if anyone else heard the theme to Jaws! We dropped anchor at 1707 GMT. We lounged for a while, then I headed in to call Customs to clear in. They instructed me to go to Mayaguez to clear immigration and then they would give me my customs control number. This is pretty pitiful, considering the fact that I am clearing customs back into the US as a US citizen! As in the mainland, I shouldn't have to present my passport! But Puerto Rico wants all of the advantages of being part of the US, but at the same time wants to do what they want to do. They really need to be brought in line with the rest of US, and a great place to start is by declaring English the national language thus making the US, ALL OF IT (including Miami) speak english! Anyway, we spent a quiet evening listening to everyone as they each made landfall. Kokopelli, Masade and Pamela landed at Mayaguez while Fortitude came to Boqueron.

April 5-13, 2001 -- Boqueron First thing in the morning, we headed to Mayaguez to clear immigration along with Fortitude. It was easy. We showed them our passports, and they said, "OK, you can go now." Sheesh, talk about a waste of time! While there, we ran into Masade, Kokopelli and Pamela. We headed from there to the Mayaguez mall where we stopped for breakfast at Burger King. We then split up, to go looking for what we wanted. Mike and I headed for Sears, still looking for fans! We then moved out into the mall. We got side tracked at a pizza place where Mike had a slice of pizza. We then continued down the mall to the Taco Maker where Mike had an enchilada and I had a burrito. We went into Wal Mart for a few things, then on the way back Mike stopped at the donut shop for a chocolate covered donut! We met up with everyone outside of Sears. Where you guess it, Mike and I headed to KFC for lunch. We then wandered over to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. We met up with everyone and we headed back to Boqueron. On Friday, we took our bad inverter in to be repaired. Later that day, Shaffer and Brown called to inform us that Heart wanted to replace our inverter, but one wouldn't ship until April 17. For the rest of the weekend, we wandered around town, checked out the shops there, and basically enjoyed being back in US waters! On Monday April 9, we shared a taxi into Cabo Rojo to drop off our VCR. It has developed a problem, apparently, with the tracking. It should be ready on Thursday. We headed from there to Radio Shack, then to Office Max and finally on to the grocery store to pick up a few more things. On Tuesday April 10, we received the first half of our mail package. This was the first time we have received mail since we left West Palm Beach! We made some other phone calls, then went back to the boat to work on the bright work. On Wednesday April 11, we received the second half of our mail package, and then headed back to the boat to review everything and do some more bright work. On Thursday April 12, while Sandra headed for the El Yunque rain forest, the only rain forest in the US, we went to pick up our VCR. After that we returned to the boat and enjoyed a quiet day. Sandra brought dinner home, Church's Fried chicken. On Friday April 13, since Sandra had the car we decided to try to find a grocery store. There wasn't anything open but fast food and the bars! We headed back to the boat and spent another quiet day.

On April 14, watching all of the day boaters zipping in and out of Boqueron, we decided that it would be a good time to move on. Sandra returned her rental car, and after she got back, we hoisted anchor and headed to Cabo Rojo to stage for our first run of the south coast of Puerto Rico. It was an easy run, and we dropped anchor in the Cabo Rojo bay about an hour and a half later. We spent the rest of the day lounging and reading after we made sure that everything that needed to be stowed was. On April 15, at 0848 GMT (about 4:48 AM EDT), we raised anchor headed for Ensenada. We were making such good time that we arrived at the entrance to Ensenada around 1100 GMT. We decided that it was so nice that we would continue on. We figured that if the winds came up, we could turn around and head back to Ensenada. The plan worked out because we dropped anchor at 1405 GMT in Ponce! Later on in the day, Iwi came in. So together with Sojourner (they were already there) and Iwi we headed into the Ponce Yacht Club to have drinks. We headed back out to the boat and spent the evening quietly. On April 16, we moved the boat from the anchorage to the fuel dock at the yacht club. After fueling up, we moved to the T head of B dock where we took a slip for the week. After due consideration, and a very wet dinghy ride back to the boat yesterday, we decided that it would make it easier to provision and to get the new inverter on the boat if we were at the dock. Besides the rates were $3.00 / foot for the week with our Boat US discount. We quickly hooked up power and flipped on the air conditioning and got comfortable.

To kick things off with a bang, the first thing Mike and I did was to rent a car. Since today was Sandra's last day with us, she took advantage of the free tour trolleys to tour Ponce with Sue from Kokopelli. This left us time to do all kinds of running around to reprovision. On April 18, Dan and Jan from Sojourner joined us to take Sandra to the airport. After we dropped her off, we headed to West Marine in Fajardo, then on to Sam's Club on our way back to Ponce. When we got back to the boat, we discovered that one of the items we purchased was not what we expected, so we would need to head back to Fajardo to return it. On April 19, we headed back to Fajardo to return the item and to pick up a few things that we added to our marine list. After we, again, hit Sam's Club, we stopped by a pay phone to find out if a package we were expecting finally showed up in Boqueron. It was there so we headed to Boqueron to pick it up. We missed the Post Office closing by 12 minutes. Fortunately, we caught one of the USPS employees as he was leaving. He graciously went back inside to retrieve our package! To give you an idea of what we did today, Ponce is in the middle of the southern coast of PR. Fajardo is on the north east tip of PR. Boqueron is in the middle of the west coast of PR. Yup, we traversed the island from one side to the other, and then some! However, happily, we had completed all of our 'out of town' running that we needed to do and could focus on staying in Ponce. Finally, Shaefer and Brown delivered our new inverter and the VHF radio we had them look at the Ponce Yacht Club office. Unfortunately, we arrived to late to pick it up. On April 20, we headed out to Santiago's Cash and Carry. This place is similar to other warehouse stores, except you do not need to be a member to buy stuff there. We loaded up on frozen chicken and a few other things before heading back to the boat. After getting the frozen stuff stowed away, we picked up the inverter and radio from the office. We spent most of the rest of the day putting stuff away. In the afternoon, we worked on Orca's computer problem, and Howard from Serendipity came over to see if he could help us with our SSB and autopilot problems. On April 21, we did more provisioning. On April 22, I headed out to Walgreens to drop Mike's prescriptions off, and to look for a few things that we thought we might be able to get there. When I got back, Mike had the new inverter mostly wired up. He finished it, and we tested it. The new inverter does not invert! It has a bad transfer switch! In the afternoon, I headed over to Serendipity to help them with a printing problem they were having. I needed a piece of software, so I called Mike on the radio and headed for the grocery store to get sour cream and milk and dinner for us. Mike completed the install on Serendipity's computer and I met him back at the boat. After dinner, we headed back to Serendipity for cocktails with them as well as Fourth Day and Contrail. On April 23, we returned the car and then finished putting the last of everything away. We made sure the boat was ready to get underway again since we planned to leave. We called Heart Interface about the bad replacement inverter, and they said that they could have a new one shipped out to us on Wednesday. This fit well with our plans since we could then move to Salinas to get everything there. We gave them the shipping information and made plans to leave the dock on April 24.

No, we weren't underway for 2 days. However, we pulled out of Ponce and staged at Coffin Island. Coffin Island is an island off the south coast of Puerto Rico that is about 2 hours from Ponce. By staging there, we trimmed almost 16 miles off our trip and had a very easy exit, as opposed to picking our way out of Ponce Harbour. Anyway, we arrived at Coffin Island around 1400 GMT (10:00 AM). We stayed there for the day, enjoying the scenery and watching other boats. One boat that was anchored by us broke free, and was heading for the Dominican Republic! We had seen two people get off the boat and head to shore. We tried to call them on the VHF, and another boat that was also close to them tried to get their attention. However, the people were oblivious. Fortunately for them, there was a third person aboard their boat that was able to handle the situation. It certainly teaches you to carry a handheld when you go in to shore! On April 25, we left bright and early for Salinas. The trip was fairly smooth, though, as usual, the wind was right on our nose! About an hour out of Salinas, we heard a friend talking on the VHF. They had run aground! We called them and told them where we were and that we could help after we anchored the boat and dropped our dinghy, which is exactly what we did. After assisting our friends, I dropped Mike at the boat and went in to the marina to check on packages and to find out what the proper procedure was for receiving things. Along the way, I stopped at Beaujolais for a cup of coffee, visited with Sojourner and finally chatted with Hallelujah. After getting the information I needed, I headed back to the boat. I pulled up in time to hear our high water alarm going off. Mike had disappeared so I tied the boat up then went in to help. After scouring the entire boat, I double checked the utility room and heard water spraying. We cleared out the utility room, lifted the floor and discovered that the leak was coming from our raw water intake for the air conditioning/freezer system. We closed the through hull, and while inspecting the problem, the pipe came off in our hands. Some yutz had put a brass fitting on a bronze sea strainer. This doesn't work due to galvanic corrosion. So, off I went to the marine store to find a new part. The had the part I was looking for in bronze! I came back to the boat and we reassembled everything. At 2:00 PM AST I headed back to the marina to wait for our first package. At 5:00 PM, I gave up waiting and headed back to the boat, since at 6:00 PM we were being treated to dinner by the friends that we had helped that morning.

This morning, we headed into town to look for a few things at the marine store and hardware store. Amazingly enough, we found most of what we were looking for! On our way back to the boat I stopped to call the guy who sold us the Pactor modem. He explained that he had encountered some difficulties and would be shipping the modem out today. We headed back to the boat and were basically lazy. Several hours later, we decided to take the dinghy for a spin. The extra oil that is supposed to be put in the gas for the first 20 hours of running the dinghy engine was starting to foul the plugs because were running at idle so much. On our way back from exercising the engine, we stopped by Letitia and met Carl and Darren. They had Grande Presidentes on board and offered us one. We couldn't refuse. We sat around with them for a while, then headed into the marina for drinks with them, Orca and Bahati. It was a fun evening. On April 27, we hung out most of the day at the marina waiting for packages. The Pactor II showed up around 2:30 PM AST. However, the inverter didn't show up. I called Xantrex about 3:30 PM AST and asked them what was going on. A bean counter had goofed and put a hold on our inverter shipment until they received the old one back! They promised the new inverter would be shipped today overnight which would mean that we would get it Monday. We arrived back at the boat and opened the box with the Pactor II in it only to discover that we had no power cord! We sent an e-mail to John about this. For dinner, we headed into the marina for the Barbecue they have every Friday night. It was a lot of fun. On April 28, we received an e-mail from John explaining that the power was supplied through the SSB radio. So, we hooked it up and we now have e-mail via SSB! The guy from Tradewinds rigging and canvas came by with the bearings for our staysail. Unfortunately, he discovered he had the wrong set. He said he would order us the correct ones. After he left, we headed into the marina to rent a car for the weekend. Unfortunately, they did not have any, so we made a reservation for Sunday. On April 29, a diver came out and cleaned the bottom of our hull. After he finished, we headed into town to do some more shopping at the marine and hardware store. We arrived back at the Marina to wait for the car rental place to pick us up. They were supposed to pick us up at 1:00 PM. They finally showed after 2:30! After picking up the car, we went in search of a new VCR since ours has died. We were successful! We went back to the boat and watched a movie! On April 30, we headed out to K-Mart to look for a few last minute things. Then we came back and waited for UPS. Finally around 3:30 PM we got the tracking number from Xantrex. As it turned out, the inverter was shipped second day and won't be here until tomorrow! We headed out to the grocery store to get a final few things there.