Day 191, Year 6 Lonely Oma and Granddad
Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Weather: Partly Sunny
Latitude: 18 20.194 N
Longitude: 065 37.410 W
Location: Cayo Obispo near Fajardo, Puerto Rico

The children have all gone home and Windbird seems so empty. Saturday was our last full day in the beach house on Vieques and we ended our time together on the beach watching the sun go down. On Sunday we took Justin, Jo, and Ziggy to the ferry at 5:45 am so they could get back to San Juan and enjoy the afternoon there before flying home on Monday morning. Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Sam spent a last hour on the beach on Sunday morning before the rain came down. We checked out of the beach house by 10 am and stopped at the fort in Isabel Segunda before traveling on to Esperanza and back to Windbird. After loading Windbird to the hilt, HJJ&S climbed aboard and we set sail for Green Beach on the west end of Vieques. We continued to have rain off and on for the remainder of the day and unfortunately had to motor most of the way to our destination for the night, but we were so excited to have Heather’s crew onboard that we simply ignored the yucky weather. Sam designated himself co-captain and busied himself following granddad around and learning about Windbird. Once we reached Green Beach we went for a dinghy ride to the beach and Sam did the driving. Sam is so into boating that Jonah is going to have a hard time competing, but once we are back on Cape Cod, we’ll certainly give Jonah his fair share of boat time. Monday morning was much nicer with a mix of sunshine and sprinkles all at the same time but we took the boys out in the dinghy while Heather and Jed had a delightful snorkel. We got photos of nudibranchs eating a sea fan and a conch eating an urchin. Then we pulled ourselves away and headed to Cayo Obispo across the channel from Fajardo. It had been a calm morning, so we were taken by surprise when we found ourselves bashing into twenty knot winds and two to three meter seas. The initial bounciness caused Jonah to be truly seasick and the rough conditions continued for the first two-thirds of the trip. Finally we got to a place where we could head more westerly and things settled down so we could enjoy the a little sailing.

It is now about 10:30 on Tuesday night. Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Sam just sent a text message saying they have arrived in Boston and are in the van headed home to Cape Cod. After dropping them at the airport this morning, we headed to the hospital emergency room to have Mark’s urinary tract infection checked out. The good news is that the antibiotics he has been taking have cleared up the infection, but that is not the primary problem. After seven hours in the emergency room, we found out that Mark has an extremely distended bladder. After much testing, the doctor decided to insert a catheter and drainage bag to drain backed up fluids from the bladder and the decision was made to leave the catheter in place until we can get an appointment with a urologist. We have a referral to a doctor here, but if he cannot see Mark in the next couple of days, we will simply leave here ASAP and head straight for the US leaving the catheter in place until we get there. Mark is enjoying his new status as the “bag man”

110503 Day 191 Cayo Obispo, Puerto Rico–Saying Farewell to HJJ&S