2017 Life Logs, Day 46: El Galeón
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Weather: Another Sunny Day; Daytime 80’s, Nighttime 70’s F
Location: At Home with JJZ&C, Finca Maravilla, Aguada, PR
We had a change in plans today. Jo, Ziggy, and Coco were supposed to go to school and I was supposed to be cleaning out the old house and doing laundry. But none of those things happened. Jo got word that El Galeón, an authentic 170 foot wooden replica of El Galeon Andalucia arrived in Mayaguez during the night.
This ship was part of Spain’s West Indies fleet in the 16th century A friend that lives in Mayaguez suggested that we drive down and all go to tour the ship together. So that became the new plan for the day. We drove to Jo’s friend’s house and then drove as a caravan to the harbor where the ship was docked. The ship was there and we were given a school pass because we had school-aged children with us. But the gate attendant told us that there were four school groups ahead of us and that we should return at 12 noon for our tour. Jo, Ziggy, and Coco went back to Missy’s house which was only a mile away, and I headed to Home Depot. I wanted to get good quality water hose to get water down the hill to the animals and I wanted to buy a steel cart to help get the 50 pound bags of feed to the animals as well. I did my shopping and made a stop at a Pep Boys to buy rubbing compound to get rid of some lovely paint left on my rental car where someone side-swiped it while it was parked at FreshMart last week. The young man who helped me decided that he would like to take a look at the scrape before selling me the rubbing compound. And he actually ended up removing the paint scrapes for me. I tried to pay him but he said he could take no money. He just did it as a favor because he loves his work. How wonderful! I then returned to Missy’s and we all returned to see the ship. When we arrived, all four groups ahead of us were on the ship or in process of getting off the ship, so we basically had the ship to ourselves. This is the second time El Galeon has visited Mayaguez and two years ago, when it was here, Missy took her three children and found it to be so crowded that you couldn’t really enjoy it. But today was delightful. As we approached the ship, I kept having flash backs of seeing this ship somewhere in the past. As we were walking up the gang plank to get onboard, I suddenly remembered that Mark and I had seen it at the dock in St. Augustine in January two years ago. But we didn’t pay to tour it. The mayor of Mayaguez pays for everyone to tour the ship for free when it is here, so today was a special treat.
When we returned home, I took Ziggy and Coco to Marina Beach for some late afternoon water fun and when we got home, I made salmon cakes for dinner. While I did that, I enjoyed listening to Justin giving Ziggy a guitar lesson.
When we came to the table, Ziggy swore he doesn’t like ‘fish’ cakes, but he and Coco finished off the entire batch. It was a full day of fun and after dinner we were full of food and ready for bed. Everyone else is asleep now and I keep falling asleep while writing this log. So if it makes no sense, forgive me. It is definitely time for me to head to bed.
