Alright sailor fans… usually my blogs are more about the personal experience of sailing… but today… I am going to share with you the wonderful and valuable knowledge about sailing the south coast of Puerto Rico that I just gleaned from my new friend Dario at the West coast sailing shop. Like a don’t miss these great places before you go type thing.
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WildChild’s start to sailing Puerto Rico
You know… I have kind of said before in previous posts and YouTube videos that I think the nicest Americans I have ever met were from North Carolina… now I am beginning to think they have competition from the wonderful people of Puerto Rico. Ever since we landed here a few days ago every person we have met has just been so genuine wonderful and kind. I just love the culture and the people here.
If you are coming this way to Puerto Rico anytime in the future you really should land in Puerto Real and come here to the Marina Pescaderia. They can help you check into the country and help you with anything else you need. They even still like sailors that anchor out, they let you land your dinghy here without fuss or extra charge, and for $10 per day you can get access to shower laundry and the internet. Jose and his staff are wonderful.
Sorry for sounding like an advertising page… that is not my intention… no they are not paying me to say any of this… I share this information because I think it will be helpful to you future sailors to this land. Land here softly and begin this Puerto Rico adventure the nice way.
The next piece of advice I would like to impart to you sailors is that if you do come here go next door to the marina and find my friend Dario at the West Coast Sailing store. Dario is a sailor like us and has years of local sailing knowledge of the area he is more than happy to share with sailors new to the area. In fact I just sat down with him today to try and get like run down of what to see and what not to miss when sailing the south coast of PR. We sat down with Navionics and I had like an outline map of Puerto Rico to take notes on. As Dario began sharing all this wonderful information I was taking notes because I know my memory is not the best.
Here is the raw map we came up with and I will refer to it constantly in the notes below… so you might have to scroll up and down as you read.
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Sailing Puerto Rico local knowledge
Begin your landing and check-in at Puerto Real. Lovely bay with lots of room and soft mud bottom. Be advised that in the middle the mud is very soft and thin and sometimes boats to do drag away. So make sure you anchor well. We dropped our sentinal anchor to be safe. This is also a hurricane hole as the bay has like 300 degrees land coverage.
When you are all provisioned and ready to begin your adventure make an easy, but early morning, jump around the corner to the south in the bay of Boqueron.
*** Note here *** Dario advises that the winds here will be double whatever the forecasts say in the afternoon as the mountains create an acceleration zone of wind along the coast. So he breaks this journey down into smaller 20-30 mile jumps at a time that he advises start each leg very early morning like just pre-dawn for most of them… and try to be hook down by noon or so. He says your life will just be easier.
Boqueron bay is known for being a loud party spot full of jet-ski and loud music and crowds, but Dario says that if you go to the south corner of the bay just inside the corner it is a nice anchorage called Los Pozos. Although this little 3.7 mile jump is not really making you any distance he says it is a nice place to get an early start to jump around the corner.
Dario advises leave almost pre-dawn the next morning to make the next 20 mile jump to La Parguera the next day. He advises that you need to be a little careful about coming around the corner at the lighthouse at Cabo Rojo because there 2 current meet at the corner and the winds really get howling around the corner in the afternoons. So he says to make your life easier it is wise to come around this corner in the morning before the thermal winds get a chance to pickup.
You WANT to round the corner at 6am
You DO NOT WANT to round this corner after 10am.
You are now going to be head into the wind for the rest of the coast here so either sail upwind in the lighter morning winds… or motor upwind when the winds on the nose are not so strong.
Eventually using your charts you will find your way carefully in between the reefs and get your yacht nestled into a nice calm anchorage either way inside or if you are deep like WildChild maybe just a bit south easty. Dario says there are plenty of FREE mooring balls here you can pick up. There is a marina and a public boat ramp nearby where you can easily get access to shore. He says there are many good restaurants in here and a lovely town and good night life.
Next jump will be to Gilligan’s Island. Although it is not called this on the Navionics charts Dario assures me it is a wonderful place to stop and visit. He says there are ferry boats bringing tourists out to the island during the day but at night it is quiet and calm. He says good holding and lovely snorkeling around the reefs.
The next jump is a little bigger and brings you to the large city of Ponce. Although this is a busy commercial port there is a snooty yacht club with full services there to the east a little bit and you can anchor safely in the bay outside the yacht club. As to whether or not the yacht club will welcome your dinghy landing there or charge you a dinghy fee… I am unsure. So if you are interested in maybe renting a car and seeing the sights and going shopping in this historic old city this might be a nice place to stop. Depends on your budget I guess.
After your visit to Ponce you can make another early morning jump offshore to Coffin Island. He says it only looks like the shape of a coffin from a distance and is not a scary place full of graveyards or massacres or anything scary like that. Dario says that it is actually a great island to visit and there are FREE mooring balls on the south west corner. There is fabulous snorkeling there and Dario says that for sure this is a MUST SEE destination you shouldn’t miss when you come to Puerto Rico.
Given that you are already offshore when you decide to leave Coffin Island you should be able to make it east to Salinas in 2 tacs at most. Dario says though to try and get this done before noon as he warns there is quite a strong funneling effect in this stretch between the islands and the shoreline in the afternoons, perhaps one of the strong wind acceleration zones in Puerto Rico, it can get quite rough he warns. So and early morning hop is strongly advised here.
Dario spent quite some time in Salinas ans tells me his boat survived Hurricane Maria in here undamaged. The port of Salinas is very well protected, well marked, and mostly full of very genuine and kind sailors like us, full of good people. You can anchor with good holding on the bottom and it is a good place to provision.
From Salinas you are going to have to make kind of a longer jump out into the ocean and face some prevailing trade winds for a day. Either you can just stay offshore and make the jump straight for Isla Vieques if you have a nice weather window OR…
You can pull into a nice, sort of deserted, easy anchorage at Puerto Patillas. There is not much there in the way of restaurants and city stuff but it is an easy place to anchor with good holding and decent protection from the strong afternoon trade winds.
Now it is time to make the jump out to Isla Vieques. Dario tells me that there is mooring balls at the west end in Punta Arenas where you can stay for a while. The whole island gives you wind protection and the conditions are calm enough to anchor there.
Even though it is not much farther he says you just have to go a little further around the corner to Villa Ezperanza where you can anchor comfortably between the little island Cayo Real and the main island in good holding and near shore. There are easy places to land your dinghy and walk the shoreline. Here you can find tour operators, he says you can’t miss them because they have big signs, that will take you into Mosquito bay. Okay okay I know I just said a dirty word… but please bear with me… Dario says this is absolutely a MUST SEE kind of thing.
So here is the deal… this place mosquito bay has the brightest and most amount of bio-luminescence of any waters in the world…! The local tour companies (for a fee of course) will take you in a pick up truck into the bay at night, and rent you a kayak, where you can paddle the dark waters. As your paddle dips into the water it is such bright green laser like effects are breath taking. You can actually see the fish swimming thru the water like green streaks. Dario said he once saw a ray swimming thru the waters and it looks like a UFO flying green under the water. Dario says for sure go on a dark night, spend a little money, and have of the coolest experiences of your life.
FOR SURE Dario says… you cannot sail past Puerto Rico and not check out this amazing natural phenomenon. You just have to see it once in your life he tells me. Dario is a cool guy.. so I will take him at his word and WildChild is going there soon.
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So pretty much as I have laid this information out for you fellow sailors, this is basically WildChild’s rough loose itinerary for the next 2 weeks. Sounds like a plan to me.
We will probably spend like 2 nights at each stop. Go slow and enjoy ourselves.
That get’s us out of PR in less than the 30 day time period the CBP officers graciously allowed Elena to visit their country.
I feel like this way we can at least say we have seen some of this cool island.
There is a little something niggling at the back of my mind though… Dario tells us that the capital city of San Juan is like over 400 years old. He says much of the old city is designated historic landmarks. There are forts and amazing museums and cool old architecture to be seen.
I love this old history kind of stuff.
I really want to try and find a way maybe to rent a car maybe in Salinas and maybe do a little road trip detour up north. We are on a very limited and tight budget… but somethings are just worth it.
Maybe we will get to explore the old city… that would be cool… lets see what happens…
Cheers sailor fans
. Captain Lexi….
. …. the rested washed clean comfortable safe and excited.
.