Apr 14
Today we have to return the rent-a-car. Before we did we ran a few last minute errands. Pat had to return something to Wal-Mart, Richard was trying to find a place to repair his stereo, and I stopped at Cash-N-Carry to pick up a large quantity of rum. Pat bought the only case of Captain Morgan they had a couple of days ago, so I had to settle for Don Q Gold. Pat and I then returned the car and were given a ride back to the marina. When I returned I found Barb polishing the exterior stainless steel on the boat. My afternoon was spent writing the logs for the past week or so, and then publishing it.
Late in the afternoon, Barb started making homemade English Muffins. This is a new thing for her, so we'll see how they turn out. They sure smelled good as they were cooking. In the evening we went over to Sol Y Mar for dinner. Dori made chicken and dumplings, where the dumpling part is made from flour tortillas. It was quite tasty. After dinner we played the new game Pat bought at Wal-Mart, called Catch Phrase. The game has been around a long time, and Barb sold one in our big garage sale. But, it has been updated to an all electronic game now. We ended up playing until after midnight.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 15
We did absolutely nothing productive today. It was quite hot and there was absolutely no wind all day, so we enjoyed being plugged in at a dock and stayed inside in the air-conditioned comfort playing computer games and reading. In the morning, I hailed our friends Tom & Pat on Lone Star on the VHF, just to see if they were anywhere nearby. We left them in Luperon a few weeks ago, but we know they have crossed to Puerto Rico, and should be making there way along the southern coast. Sure enough, they answered. They were just arriving at Gilligan's Island, about fifteen miles west of here, and plan to get here tomorrow. It will be good to see them again.
We were invited to come over to Perseverance after dinner to play Catch Phrase again. Pat & Dori were also invited. Turns out, Richard bought the game too when they were all at Wal-Mart. We didn't play quite as long this time, but had just as lively a time. We also enjoyed another version of Richard's coated pecans. I don't recall if I have mentioned these before. On several happy hour occasions, Richard has brought pecan halves that were coated with something. Once chocolate, once a spicy sauce, once a coffee/chocolate mix. They have always been different and always good.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 16
First thing after the morning radio routine, I went up to the pavilion to get my starter ordered. I had sent an e-mail to the Westerbeke dealer in Norfolk over the weekend and wanted to follow up with a phone call. I got in touch with them via Skype, and learned that they could not get the factory to drop ship the new starter directly here to me, since there is a Westerbeke distributor in Puerto Rico, and I'm in their territory. It never occurred to me that there was a Westerbeke distributor here. The guy in Norfolk told me that he would have to have it shipped to him, and then he could ship it to me. I asked if he could give me the Puerto Rico distributor's number and I would see if they had one. He did, and I gave them a call. They didn't have it either, but have an order coming Wednesday and can add it to that. I told them to do it, and I'll drive up to San Juan to pick it up.
While I was at the pavilion on the computer, Tom & Pat from Lone Star walked up. They had gotten in and anchored just off the marina. They dinghied up to the stern of our boat and came in to check out the marina. They plan to come in to the marina tomorrow.
I also boxed up the cracked heat exchanger to send it back to Westerbeke for warrantee credit. I left it at the office for pickup. Later in the afternoon, I happened to be in the office to ask a question when the UPS man came in. He asked the girl for the pickup, and she did her usual "I don't know what you're talking about" routine and acted like there was no pickup. The UPS guy spoke good English and I pointed him at my box behind the counter. When I left it there the same girl had told me where to put it. I don't usually bad-mouth people in my logs, but the office staff here is pretty useless. If I hadn't just happened to be in the office at that moment, my box would not have been picked up.
All day, the bar and restaurant has been closed, and they have moved every piece of kitchen equipment out into the driveway and are pressure washing it. They also used the pressure washer inside to clean floors under where the equipment sits and regular cleaning never gets to. I have never seen a restaurant do this thorough a cleaning. Of course, they may only do it once every ten years. Around lunchtime, we had been up at the pavilion surfing the net and we had seen the employees who were cleaning the kitchen sit down to several Domino's pizzas for lunch. This planted a seed in our minds for our dinner plans. About 16:30, I got online and looked up the local Domino's. There are three in Ponce, and that's why I was in the office when the UPS guy came, to ask which was closet. If Javal, the dockmaster hadn't been in the office, I probably wouldn't have gotten this information. He is the exception to the rule here, in that he is friendly and very helpful. Anyway, back to the pizza, I called the closest Domino's. A man answered in Spanish, and I said "Buenos Tardes, Habla English?". (That means, good afternoon, do you speak English?) He answered, "no". I then asked in English if anybody did, and he hung up. That may have been by accident, so I called back. The same guy answered, and I asked again for somebody that spoke English. He put me on hold this time and in a few seconds a girl picked up. She spoke minimal English and apologized, but I got our order placed and told her that her English was better than my Spanish. When she had asked me for a phone number, I gave her the number of the marina, since we don't have a phone. I then ordered two large pizzas. Both were to be Extravaganza Feasts, one thin crust and one hand tossed. They told me how much the order was, but I didn't understand what she said. My Spanish numbers go to ten. Once you get into teens, and twenties, and thirties, etc. I'm lost. They also said it would be thirty minutes. If we get the order correctly, it will be a miracle. While everybody else went to the boats to get drinks and plates, I waited by the office for the pizza. Pat joined me after a bit and we waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour, we decided to call again. This time a man who spoke ok English got on the phone. He said they had gotten to the security gate at the marina and given them my name. The security guard called the office with my name and the office said they never heard of me. The worthless office girls strike again. The Domino's guy asked me for my phone number instead of the office, and I tried to explain to him that I live on a boat and don't have a phone. This concept is so foreign to most people that you might as well just say you're from Mars. Finally, he said he would make new pizzas and bring them if I would meet the driver at the security gate in twenty minutes. I said I would be there. Pat and I then walked down to the gate, which is probably a quarter mile from the pavilion. We sat and waited, and waited. After forty minutes, we were just about to give it up, when we saw a car with the Domino's sign on top turn into the marina driveway. He pulled up to us, gave us the pizzas and told us it was $44. $44 ???!!! For two pizzas? At this point, we were hungry and frustrated, so I paid him. I can't imagine that two pizzas can cost that much, even when you don't have any kind of coupons. Granted, I didn't understand how much she said when I placed the order, and I should have clarified it, or maybe they charged us for the ones that got wasted because of the delivery mix-up. The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off. The remarkable thing was that the order was exactly correct, and the pizza was pretty good.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 17
Lone Star is coming into the marina today, and they are going to the fuel dock first. Tom had come in by dinghy and spoken to the fuel dock guy and told him they were coming. Barb went back out to Lone Star with Tom so they will have an extra hand on deck to handle lines. I went around to the fuel dock in case they needed an extra hand on the dock. It was a good thing I did, because the fuel dock guy was not there. I took the lines and got them secure, just as the fuel dock guy came from somewhere. I got a bag of ice while I was there and went back to MoonSail. After Lone Star fueled, they had to walk to the office to check in and get a slip assignment. Turns out it is Javal's day off and the fuel dock guy apparently just pumps fuel. So after they got their assignment, they called me on the radio to say they were coming. I went to the slip they were assigned and waited. I was surprised when Lone Star Pat walked up. She had been on the dock still when the fuel dock guy cast off their lines. Good thing Barb was aboard so Tom had some help on deck. Nobody from the marina ever showed up, and we got Lone Star tied up ourselves.
We met a guy on the dock named Franz, who is a club member. He was with Gene from Dream Ketcher. Gene was looking for a welder, and Franz was going to take him to a friend who welds. I asked him if he knew of a shop that rebuilt starters, and he said sure. He offered to take my starter to them. A couple hours later, he was back with my starter and said it was fixed. I asked him how much and he said "Whatever". I insisted he tell me what it cost. He said the guy was his friend and I should just give him whatever I felt it was worth. Gene explained to me that the guy at the shop had taken the end off and freed the jammed part that makes the gear engage the flywheel and then greased it good. I got $40 for Franz and thanked him profusely.
The rest of the day was again spent hiding from the heat and lack of any breeze. In the evening, we joined Tom & Pat and Pat & Dori aboard Sol Y Mar for dinner. Dori cooked the other half of the free mahi-mahi she scored last week from the sport fish boat. After dinner we played Catch Phrase again. I don't know if I like this game or not. It's a fun concept, but the way it works, it brings out the worst in all of us to actually play.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 18
After the radio routine, I went up to the pavilion to make a reservation for a rental car. I will need to go to San Juan to get the new starter, Pat needs to return something to West Marine, and Tom & Pat need to do some sightseeing since they just got here. So, we rented a small car that is good for four people, and can accommodate six if we just think of the gua-guas in the Dominican Republic.
Back at the marina, I installed the repaired starter to make sure it really works. Barb hit the button and the engine cranked and came to life. I checked for any leaks from the other repairs and found none. I plan to go ahead and get the new starter and then I will have a spare. While I did a few other minor boat things, Barb went with the other ladies to Wal-Mart and the Pueblo supermarket.
Around noon, Dream Ketcher came over and asked if I would help them with their lines as they left. They have a deadline to be in St. Thomas, so they are moving on. I helped them off and told them we'd see them in The Virgins probably. Not long after Dream Ketcher left, another boat came into the same slip. Vagu is from Europe. They left the Mediterranean in December, crossed the Atlantic via the Azores, landed in the Caribbean in St. Lucia, went south to Grenada, and are now here in Puerto Rico, in less than four months. It has taken us that long to get here from Florida. I don't now what their rush is, but it sounds too fast for my tastes.
In the evening, we all piled in the car and went to a Mexican restaurant that had been spotted earlier in the day on the shopping trip. Our plan is to go there, verify they have beef and beer, (recall last weeks Fajardo adventure) and have dinner if they do. We sent Pat in first to verify that they had beef and beer, and then all went in. The food was quite good, and we enjoyed it. After dinner, we stopped at another place that had been spotted earlier - Cold Stone Creamery. We had a fix of ice cream like we haven't had since the States.
As we got into the car to leave Cold Stone, we could here a lot of sirens in the distance. We got on the main road to the marina and saw lots of flashing lights ahead of us. We assumed there must have been an accident or something. As we caught up to the flashing lights, we realized they were on our side of the road, and slowly moving our way. Before we left the marina we noticed that it looked like they were setting up for a big party with a live band on the maleceon, so we guessed maybe this was an escort for the band of something. As we got right in amongst the vehicles in this procession we realized that of all the flashing lights and sirens, only two were police. They were on motorcycles trying to stop cross traffic and let this procession get to the maleceon. All the other lights and sirens were on full sized vans, each fully covered with stick-on graphics advertising some kind of alcoholic beverage. There were a couple of Budweiser, a couple of Medallas, a couple of Don Q, and several from Gasolina, a packaged mixture of tequila, rum, and fruit juices. Each of these vans had full sized light bars on the roof like any emergency vehicle would. They also had strobe lights retrofitted in their signal light fixtures like an emergency vehicle would. They also had electronic sirens like emergency vehicles would. I couldn't believe these advertising vehicles had all this equipment onboard that would be restricted in the States, and that they were getting a police escort. In addition to the dozen or more vans, there were thirty or forty Jeeps, filled with young people. Many of these also had sirens and flashing lights of some nature. The kids were standing up in the ones with no roofs, and hanging out the windows of the ones with roofs. All of this parade went into the parking lot for the maleceon. It's probably going to be a noisy night.
Later in the evening, we heard booms outside. We went out to watch an short fireworks display from the maleceon. The band is going strong, but we barely hear them inside the boat with the air conditioning on.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 19
This morning I am driving to San Juan to pick up the new starter. A little after 08:00 I called to make sure it had come in before making the trip. Sandra, the woman who speaks good English there told me that yes it was there. I asked her if they closed at lunchtime, and she said no, that it was ok to come anytime and that the part would be at the parts counter. Sandra gave me some large scale instructions, like take the highway from Ponce to the end, follow the signs to Bayamon on another expressway, and get off at exit 10. She said to call her from there for more detailed instructions. She also gave me a street address of sorts. After hanging up it occurred to me that I couldn't easily call form the exit, since we don't have cell phones. I put the address into Mapquest and came up with a location that looked plausible, so I wasn't too worried.
At 09:00, Tom, Pat and I took off for San Juan. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the south side of the city. We took PR 52 which is an interstate type road to San Juan. I knew from our previous trip that the expressway doesn't really end, it just splits off into several others depending on where you are going in the metropolitan area. So, when we saw a sign for a Bayamon exit, we took it. This apparently wasn't the right exit, because it put us on a major city street, not another expressway. But, I could see where this street would get us to where Mapquest said to go, so we followed it. When we got to where Mapquest took us, we found a residential neighborhood, not an industrial park. We wandered around a bit to see if we were close but not perfect, but were getting nowhere. We stopped at a large electrical supply business hoping they could help us. I assumed being a large business somebody would speak English. After a minute the counter man got somebody form in back who could speak a tiny bit of English. We tried to explain what we were looking for and showed him the address. All that gave him a clue was that the place was in the Luchetti Industrial Park. Turns out they had another store in the same industrial park, so they gave us flimsy directions to their other store and said maybe somebody there would know the business we were looking for. We followed their directions, and with just wrong turn, we found ourselves at the Goya Foods plant, which was a landmark they gave us. We turned there and went down the street, but still did not find our place or theirs. I spotted a pay phone and told Tom to stop and I would call again. The first phone didn't work, but there was anther one next door at Burger King. The lady who answered the phone spoke pretty good English and asked where I was. I told her the Burger King near Goya Foods. She acted like she knew where that was and told me to continue down the street to the light, turn right, and they were a few doors down. Proud of ourselves, we continued down the street but found no light. We went a mile or more until the first light we came to which was the entrance to a U.S. Army base. We kept going and were long out of the industrial park, but stuck in very heavy traffic. It took us half an hour to get to where we could turn around and retrace our steps back to the Burger King. Across from the Burger King I spotted the word "camionero", which means truck. The place we are looking for is La Casa de Camioneros - The House of Trucks. They are more of a truck parts place, but are also the Westerbeke distributor. We turned around and stopped at this place. I went inside and the receptionist spoke a little English. I asked if they were the Westerbeke dealer and she looked puzzled. I asked if they were the Mack Truck dealer, and she lit up. This was not the right place, but she knew where it was. The problem was when the lady gave me the directions from the Burger King, she meant to go the other way. We were about a half mile from where we wanted to be. We followed the latest directions and found La Casa de Camioneros. If we had only not turned at the Goya plant, we could have been here forty-five minutes ago.
Once at La Casa de Camioneros, I went in to the parts counter. The guy behind the counter barely spoke English, but I conveyed that I was here to pick up a Westerbeke starter that was ordered and should have my name on it. He looked around behind the counter and shrugged his shoulders. He told me that I needed to speak to Sandra and she was at lunch until 13:00. I politely told him that I had already spoken with Sandra this morning and she assured me it was at the parts counter with my name on it. The guy looked in back for a minute and came back and said I would have to come back. I hesitated just long enough that he gave it another try. He picked up the phone and made a call. A minute later he got a call back. He went in back again and looked where he was told and came back with my box. At just this time another parts counter guy came in the front door with his lunch. He spoke English and knew all about it. Apparently the guy I was dealing with only worked the counter at lunchtime. Anyway, I got my part and we were off.
Our next stop is West Marine. Even though we have been there before, it was from a different direction. We also had conveniently forgotten to bring the maps we had the other day. Since I had done so poorly on the last directional challenge, I let Pat guess on this one. We got near where we had stayed in the hotel, but accidentally got on the bridge to Old San Juan. We turned around and saw a Sizzler Steak House at the marina we were about to pass. We figured we could have lunch, and that somebody at the marina could give us directions to West Marine. We had lunch and sat at a table overlooking the marina and San Juan Harbor. We watched a guy feeding what appeared to be an old pelican on the dock. The guy was getting ready to go fishing and had a bag of small bait fish. The pelican just walked up to him on the dock and stood next to him looking up like a pet would until he got a few fish.
After lunch we went to the marina office to ask directions. A guy was coming out of the office and Pat asked in Spanish if he spoke English. He not only spoke English, but he wasn't Puerto Rican, so he spoke it without any accent. He happily took us back in the office, got a map and drew the route on it for us. We probably could have found it ourselves if we had brought our map. We got there with no problem and Pat took care of what he needed.
It was about 15:30 now and I drove us back to Ponce. We had quite heavy traffic leaving San Juan. I guess rush hour starts early. It was a little after 17:00 when we strolled down the dock to find the ladies sitting in chairs on the end of the dock, already enjoying happy hour without us. We all visited for a while and then retired to our boats for dinner.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.
Apr 20
Today has been a quiet one. About all I have accomplished is getting our empty propane tank filled. The propane place is only a mile away, but it was sure nice to have the car instead of having to carry it. Tom & Pat (Lone Star) are going to use the car for the next few days for a road trip, so Pat (Sol Y Mar) and I ran a last few errands to stock up on beer and other heavy items before we don't have a car. One of the things that we all have gotten used to enjoying is homemade pizza. Of course, a necessary ingredient for homemade pizza is pepperoni. We have been unable to find pepperoni in the grocery stores since we left the Turks & Caicos. Well, Cash & Carry has five pound packages of pepperoni for $12. Split three ways, that's enough pepperoni to make a lot of pizzas and cheese/cracker/pepperoni appetizers for a long time. And, pepperoni lasts for a long time. For $4 per boat, we could waste some if it goes bad. So, we checked out of Cash & Carry with two cases of beer, a half gallon of rum, and five pounds of pepperoni.
This evening we all went over to the maleceon for dinner. We have learned that the weekend event going on here is like the Olympics of Puerto Rico and that it will be crazy. This ties in with the motorcade we got stuck in the other night. We figured on foot, we couldn't get in too much trouble. We went to an inside restaurant for dinner, instead of one of the twenty or more kiosks that serve fried empanadas. We greeted our waitress with an "Hola!" and she replied "How are you tonight?" in perfect English. We learned that she was born in Puerto Rico, moved to New Jersey when she was two, and moved back to Puerto Rico in her early twenties. We had a nice dinner, and timed it perfectly since a heavy rain shower came through while we were inside.
After dinner, we walked the length of the maleceon and had several more beverages. One of them was Gasolina. We have seen banners all over Puerto Rico advertising Gasolina. Off hand, that doesn't sound like something I want to drink. But, the banner says it is tequila, rum, orange & pineapple juices, and secret stuff. It comes in a foil pouch like Capri Sun juice, so I'm sure US do-gooders would freak out that it is being marketed towards children. We bought several of them, and mercifully the bartender poured them into cups so we didn't have to look like kids sipping Capri Suns through the built in straws. They weren't bad, but I can make a better rum punch myself, so I won't run out and buy a case of them to go. We enjoyed listening to a band that we didn't have a clue what they were singing, but the beat was good. The crowd is either coming later or has been scared off by the rain, because there aren't more than a hundred people on the whole boardwalk. About 21:30, we headed back to the boats to crash.
GPS N 17-57.886 W 066-37.011 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 8843.