2018 Life Logs, Day 70—Mayaguez to Boqueron, PR
Date: Sunday, March 11, 2018
Weather: Sunny, Hot, and, WINDY; High 86, Low 74 degrees F
Latitude: 18.02097
Longitude: -67.17624
Location: At Anchor off Boqueron, Puerto Rico
We had a wonderful, wild sail from Mayaguez south to Boqueron this morning. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco drove down to sail with us. Sam went in to pick them up in the dinghy, but Miss Coco had backed out of yesterday’s promise to ride in the dinghy to Windbird. So, Justin stripped down to his underwear and invited Coco to swim out to the boat with him. She took the challenge, but after a short swim she decided that riding in the dinghy was a better option. So Coco and Justin hitched a ride with Sam who delivered them, with Jo and Ziggy, to the boat. We then headed south to Boquerón. The advice for sailing in this area of the world is to get started before dawn and arrive at your destination by 8 am. We started our trek at 8 am, when things were still calm, but as the sun warmed the land, the winds quickly picked up and we had quite a windy sail. The head winds built from 4 to 8 to 12 to 15 to 18 to 22 to 25 to 28 and finally to 30 knots. This was not predicted, so we were sailing with a full main and headsail. We first reefed the headsail, then furled it. But Sam left the mainsail up full. There were times when Coco would pop up from the main cabin telling us things were “slanted down there.” It wasn’t a complaint as she was having a great time, but just a comment on things. At one point, the adults in the cockpit were talking about going to lunch once we arrived in Boqueron, but Jo pointed out that Coco really wanted to have tuna salad onboard Windbird just like Ziggy did the day before. Obviously Coco was down below listening to everything we were saying, so once again she popped her head up to ask, “Did I hear someone say ‘tuna’?” That child doesn’t miss a thing. And I was really proud of both Ziggy and Coco as they never panicked no matter how “slanted” things got. Thankfully the seas were fairly calm and they were able to spend some of the time just sitting on the foredeck with either mommy or daddy and enjoying the ride. Their was a bit of spray, but not enough to dampen a good time. When we turned to go into the anchorage at Boqueron, we were headed directly into 25 knots of wind, so we furled the main and motored slowly in against the wind. We anchored near a friend of Sam and Dawn’s, a boat named Le Mischief, captained by an Aussie named Steve. They came over to say hello and then we headed to shore to get lunch and find a ride for Justin and crew back to Mayaguez to where they left their van. In the meantime, another cruising friend of Sam and Dawn’s sent a text. It was Leslie from Texas Two Step. The boat is in the Bahamas, but she flew to PR in a helicopter with her husband who is doing power line work. Aguadilla, which is not close to Boqueron, has been their homebase in Puerto Rico. But she was free for the afternoon and decided to drive down to say hello. Since we had struck out on getting a taxi back to Mayaguez, she offered to take Justin and family back to Mayaguez on her way back to Aguadilla. However, she was not leaving right away, so Justin and Jo were going to have to wait. They were okay with that even though Ziggy and Coco were getting tired, but about the time we thought we had things settled, a man named Eddie showed up at the restaurant where we were having lunch and asked Justin is he needed a ride somewhere. Not sure how that happened, but it was perfect. And then Sam and I asked Eddie if he would take us to a car rental in Mayaguez in the morning. He was glad to oblige, so our travel issues were solved as well. It was like magic. So Justin, Jo, and kids left with Eddie and Sam, Dawn, Leslie, and I continued to sit in the restaurant to visit. After Leslie left, Sam, Dawn, and I enjoyed the lively waterfront scene in Boqueron. The bars were full and people overflowing into the streets. Music was playing everywhere, so we joined the party by having a couple of drinks before heading back to Windbird. When we did finally get in the dinghy to go home, we decided to go visit with the folks on Le Mischief, Steve’s wife is back in mainland US visiting with family and he has had two young crew members onboard helping him out. We found out in our conversations, that one of them, Ashley, was headed to Hertz in Mayaguez tomorrow morning. That is the same place where we had made a reservation for a rental car. She had no idea how she was going to get there, so we invited her to join us at 8 am for a ride with Eddie. We talked and talked and finally around 9 pm we headed back to Windbird. When we got there, we realized we hadn’t had dinner, so we decided on a quick-to-fix salami, pepperoni, and cheese plate and continued to talk on into the night. Doesn’t take long for an old cruiser to fall back into the cruising life style.
