I am not sure if this is inexcusable or not, but yeah even my blogs have gotten behind real time. Given our new busy sailing and adventure itinerary, and the extremely limited access to the world wide web that we have, and the abundance of cool experiences we have been having, my supply of stories has exceeded my blogging speed.
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Salinas
Our tour thru Puerto Rico has been an adventure full of ups and downs. The last I shared with you was our unhappy stop in Ponce leading to our amazing stop at Coffin Island. After coffin Island your favourite sailor girls had an easy slow day sail to Salinas in winds and seas so gentle we were reading books the whole sail. The two of us lazily at the helm in sunshine and blue skies with the yacht slowly sailing downwind (Yes as weird as it was we had WEST winds to RUN down) to Salinas at a comfortable 3 knots.
Just as we were sailing in towards shore rain showers and thunderstorms hit us as we motored slowly in towards the reefs near the opening to Salinas. I did not want to risk having full sails up under storm clouds where the wind might suddenly gust or, worse yet, have falling winds under it. This is a secret danger that furls sailors brows with concern, you cannot sail in winds coming straight down from the clouds. In fact falling winds, if they catch the captain unaware, can suddenly knock a sailboat over on its side pinning the sheets to the water. Super bad times.
WildChild, with sails put away motored without incident thru the storm in towards the bay. Just as we got within that last mile of the channel entrance the rain stopped and visibility improved again. Just as I was unsure about the limits of the “safe” channel I saw a CAT (Catamaran Sailboat) to the east motoring towards us and towards the channel entrance. I saw the vessel name on the AIS display and was just thinking of hailing them to ask for local info about the channel when suddenly the VHF bursts to life hailing us.
It was a south African guy named Shaun, a local sailor, freely offering information about the shoals and safe (unmarked) channel to enter into Salinas bay. The thing that had me rather concerned, aside from the possible inaccuracies of the charts, was that hurricane Maria 2 years so devastated the area, with such violence and force, it shifted a lot of sand around on the bottom of the ocean and there are now hundreds of unmarked shoals all over PR. The charts were already telling me there were 7 foot shallow areas leading into the bay. Mucho danger for our 8 foot keel.
Shaun was super kind, friendly and wonderfully helpful. He guided us around the unmarked shallows and showed us where we could safely get into the outer bay of Salinas. He did caution us that to play it safe we should not try to enter the inner bay, so he showed us an exact spot he knew would be safe for us and still protected. He circled back to make sure we were okay and I hollered over that we would love to buy him a beer later as a thank you.
As the sun was setting we told him that tomorrow morning at around 10am we would dinghy into the bay and find him. WildChild set her hook in a comfortable 14 feet of water and soon we saw signs of manatees again. The sailor girls went down below, cooked dinner, watched some TV and called it a day.
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New Friends
The next bright and sunny warm morning Elena and I launched the dinghy off the davits and set off to find our saviour from the day before. Interesting side story, as we were motoring our small white with pink striped dinghy the half mile towards the marina, we almost ran over a manatee that suddenly surfaced 5 feet in front of us. Quickly I cut the dinghy engine and we glided over the spot it just submerged before us. There was no bump so I am confident we did not hit the creature. It was a close call though.
As we were making our way into the bay I was admiring all the different boats around. I am infinitely curious about what it is like to sail every different type of sailboat. Every sailboat has a story, who owns it, where has it been, how did it get to this exact moment in space and time? Slowly we dinghied past this spectacular Ketch. Two masts and no booms…! It is using the wishbone boom I have only ever seen on Non-Such’s, but its a double masted ketch…! This is so rare.. so weird.. so unique I am just dyin of curiosity to learn her story. We circled around her twice in the dinghy so I could check her out and take pictures of this gem. I wonder what she feels like to sail… hmmm?
We found Shaun’s CAT at anchor in roughly the place he told us we could find him and went over to say hello and offer of thanks for all his help the day before. Shaun is such a bright vibrant guy who embodies the true spirit of the sailing community. He warmly and cheerfully greeted us and introduced us to his wonderful wife Shelly. In short order they invited us aboard their yacht to chat and make friends.
After about 2 hours of just lovely warm open and engaging conversation, I just love these people, they offered that if we need to provision, they had an SUV and were going into town tomorrow and could give us a lift if we’d like. Would we like… Ummm… super Y E S … that would be completely awesome, wonderfully kind, and help solve a difficult problem we had.
The nasty mean Ocean had claimed the life of one of our Cameras, our Sony handiCam, just before we left Luperon and we were down to only our small white water proof Nikon camera for shooting YouTube video footage. Even that had recently developed a spot inside its casing and was having trouble focusing, we desperately had to find a way to replace our camera, and for us, without wheels, that was going to be a difficult mission. Shaun and Shelly offering to drive us into a larger town, full of bigger stores, was exactly the answer to our prayers. They made the offer genuinely, Real sailors freely, expecting nothing in return, just helping fellow sailors.
This is the secret rule in the sailing community…
…SAILORS TAKE CARE OF SAILORS…
….real sailors know… that there by the grace of God go I…. that we all have braved the oceans and been in real danger out here… that we have all needed safe harbour before… we have all needed help… we have all been far from home and lost and in need of assistance… and we all know that it is our duty as sailors to pay this forward.. all the time… like making a deposit in the bank… because someday it will be you in need of help… and it will come back around. This is the TRUE spirit of the sailing community… real sailors know this… without words… and we all abide by it.
Yachties, pretend sailors, and weekend wannabees do not know this… do not possess this spirit… because they have never braved real danger before. They don’t have the balls to face the real danger out here the real sailors face. Its why I have no respect for this breed.
Shaun and Shelly however are real sailors, they are the living embodiment of the true sailor spirit and I could not get enough of them. They do run an air B&B out of their yacht so if you ever wanna try out a sailing vacation in Puerto Rico you should try and find them.
By around noon we said goodbye and we dinghied over to the marina to dispose of garbage and try and find wifi access to upload the last 2 blogs to your guys. We sat under the shelter of the marina building under construction when a sudden rain shower passed by. Us 2 girls on our phones access the internet in safety and relative comfort.
What is interesting, as you can see from some of these pictures, is the damage of hurricane Maria 2 years ago. You can see that the lower level of the marina building was completely washed away. The docks all got destroyed and this whole parking lot was 10 feet underwater. There was just so much damage, it is incredible. Slowly they are still rebuilding.
After the rain cleared we wanted to try and walk around a bit and maybe find a convenience store, Captain Lexi was running out of milk for her morning super chocolatey chocolate milk wake up ritual, gasp, and certainly it would simply be uncivilized to run out of milk. We found like a bakery down the road with some provisions, yes we got milk, but… we also got…
CHEESECAKE…..! YAY and super yay.. score one for the good girls. We both just love cheesecake and we have not found or had any cheesecake since Marsh Harbor Bahamas like 8 months ago. Two super excited girls stretched the budget and sprung for 3.. yes 3 slices of this amazing super yummy mega delicious gift from the heavens. Happy girls now.
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Shopping
The next day we dinghied over to Shaun and Shelly’s yacht at the appointed hour, tied our dinghy off to their yacht, and jumped into their dinghy with them to go to shore. We all piled into their SUV and drove into Ponce together. We got to see a small part of the countryside on a personal tour from our new friends as they explained various aspects of the local society.
This is difficult to explain to you… sort of… I don’t know… how overwhelming these everyday things had become for us. In the picture you just see us driving down a normal road with normal sights and sounds and colours and movement about the vehicle. Stuff you take for granted everyday. For us sailor girls… who spend our days on the Ocean… everyday… every week… every month… month after month on WildChild.. constantly being rocked by the ocean… with beaches and water wind and sky for company all the time… these normal sights of civilization overwhelmed us, so foreign. It was so much motion and shapes and visual stimulus I felt it looming inside my brain. Often I had to shut my eyes to block it out for a moment of mental silence.
Going into a Wal-mart gave me a feeling of nervous tension for no reason other than it had somehow become so foreign to the world I had become accustomed to. I had seen a documentary before of American prisoners who, after being released from long sentences in prison, walked into a Wal-mart, and got so overwhelmed by all the motion sights colours and sounds they panicked and ran outside, and we are talking big strong scary dudes. It is such a weird feeling, nearly impossible to describe.
I kept my wits about me and swallowed the nervous energy that had pushed me off my centre. After several stops and various stores we finally hit the jackpot. We conquered our camera problem, so hopefully the YouTube videos will still keep coming for you guys.
We replaced the Sony HandiCam… now in blue. Its a good simple camera with a decent built in microphone and great zoom lens. Easy to use, I miss my old one. I suppose the only downside is that it is super NOT water proof… and I live on a boat in the ocean. The last one died just from the salt in the air inside the boat while sitting on the dry Nav desk…!
We live on a very tight budget so splurging with money is something we do only after careful consideration. I found this little action cam in a store for only $75. The Vivitar is a GoPro knock off without the hefty price tag. It came with a waterproof case and a rail mount and a helmet mount, which for a GoPro you couldn’t even buy these accessories for less than a hundred bucks. Although it essentially counts as a non-essential toy, thus difficult to justify, I was kind of excited for the video possibilities it will give the YouTube channel. I set it up in the cockpit to film what we are doing when we are both busy with the sailing stuff.
The other little indulgence I made was in the clearance section in the women’s bathing suit section of the Wal-Mart. My old captains uniform, my pink bikini, has gotten rather old and worn in. For $11 I was able to replace it with this stunning new ensemble.
Sort of the secret joke is… that back home… in Canada I am a very modest good Christian girl who would never been seen in public showing either my fat tummy or my arms and legs. Even in summer I am usually fully covered. When I bought the last little pink bikini I was sure I’d probably never wear it. Well it seems my good Christian girl modesty starts to crumble at about 30 degrees Celsius as the sweat starts running down my back, and at 35 degrees C I am dyin hot and want to be as close to naked as I can get, all hints of modesty gone. Since it has been 35 degrees C or hotter everyday for the last 7 months on WildChild the little pink bikini is all I ever seem to wear anymore. Even sailing and at the helm I’m always in my pink bikini, thus its playful title as my captain’s uniform.
I actually wore it out, so the new captain’s uniform was practically a necessary boat expense..? Right?
Ha ha ha… yeah… I think I’m funny.
Well after a restful 2 days in Salinas WildChild turned back out to sea and has been hopping ever eastward against the trade winds. Slowly each day we have been easy sailing a few hours a day out to Isla Vieques. Last night we got to kayak in the most bioluminescent bay in the world on a moonless and rather dark night under a beautiful sky full of stars. It was cool… but that is the next story…
If any of you are ever interested in chartering a yacht for a week of paradise… you can find and contact Shaun and Shelly on
Facebook at… thesailingthaysens
Cheers Sailor dudes…
. Captain Lexi…
. the silly… the wild… the brave… the professional sailor bum…