Monday 22 Apr, Puerto Rico day 18: Getting ready to depart Puerto Rico: provision, laundry, checkout paperwork, admin onboard.
Total calm this morning, and cooler than usual. It’s only 23degC in the boat, almost chilly! And oddly, for the first time, like ever, the wind is from the west. And this morning the strong wind does not set in at 09:30am like it normally does.
After breakfast we start our tasks for the day with a shopping trip to Econo for fresh groceries before we hand back the hire car. Then it’s laundry time. The marina’s 2 washers and drier are in a small shed outside. We have never done laundry outdoors before! While we wait for the wash cycle to finish the skies darken and it rains. Really heavy rain and it goes on and on. This is why launderettes are usually inside buildings, not outside!
Finally, doing our best to keep everything dry, we head back to Cloudy Bay. It’s a really dank dreary day today. Cool and clammy (humid), so back on board we have a hot tea to warm up… yes, we are chilly at mid afternoon! We also have lunch at the saloon table because the cockpit is very wet from the rain.
Good news on the spinnaker sale. The buyer called and has decided to simply come passed the marina and pick up the sail on his way to USA. This means the headache of shipping to St. Martin is over. Ha ha … just as we were finally starting to get quotes coming in from shipping agents. Still, much easier this way. Less headache on both sides. We check with Jose the marina owner and he is fine with us leaving the spinnaker there for a month. So very accommodating this marina.
Also good news on clearing out of Puerto Rico. Normally the CBP (US customs and boarder protection) don’t need you to clear out. But coming into Dominican Republic there are going to want a clearance document from the previous country… or an undefined bribe! But the CBP officer kindly issues us with our clearance document via email. We suspected we would need to physically go to their office in the next town to get it.
So looks like we are now all set to leave in the morning for our passage to Dominican Republic. We just need to decide if we stop the night in Isla de Mona. This is a small round island that lies midway between PR and DR. It’s said to be the Galapagos of the Caribbean. Totally unspoiled with lots of wildlife including giant iguanas and tortoises. Could be interesting. Our only concern is that we are too deep to get inside the reef for good shelter. We can only anchor outside, in the swell. May not be a good recipe for comfort. We will likely decide as usual, at the last moment.
The rest of the afternoon is small jobs like taking the outboard off, adding safety strops to the dinghy and preparing the spinnaker lines for the predicted light downwind sail tomorrow.
In the evening we relax with cinema in the saloon. We are running low on movies now, so not great cinema as we are really on the dregs of films now! Then early to bed in clean sheets. Bliss 🙂
