Wednesday 17 Apr, Puerto Rico day 13: Another lovely downwind sail along south coast, into Parguera town.
During night the wind dies to just a few knts. Interestingly, because we are anchored kind of midway along the lee shore of Coffin Island, there is swell coming from both directions – one set from either side of the island. And because of this we don’t seem to be rolling! One swell must be cancelling the other’s effect on us. So we sleep very peacefully. And thankfully Oana is feeling much better this morning. Looks like we both had a 1-day cold.
The morning is bright and it’s so lovely to be back anchored in turquoise water again. Immediately after breakfast we head ashore to have a look around before the place gets mobbed with tripper boats from Ponce.
At first, the new outboard won’t start. Eventually, after several pulls it splutters into live and we put-put slowly ashore. I guess this is the downside of a carburetor compared to the fuel injection we had on the 20HP. Our old outboard never failed to start on the first pull.
Ashore we beach the dinghy then fly the drone. Lovely views of the island from up there in this clear morning light. The beach itself is fairly small, but nice sand. Clearly set up for tripper boats with an array of inflatable water sports devices, tethered and awaiting guests.
We have a chat to 2 park keepers who apparently live on the island 1 week on 1 week off. The older one has been doing this for 25 years! They tell us it’s called Coffin Island because of the island’s shape, but in the small information center there is a story of a Portuguese pirate who put his dead wife in a coffin in a cave on this island … and the story goes on about buried treasure and pirates fighting to the death over it. We like this version of the islands name origin much better! And “Treasure Island” book was inspired by this legend.
Although there has been clean up after hurricane Maria, there is still a lot of debris lying around. We wonder how these park guys can be here permanently, with apparently nothing to do, yet not do some simple clean up?
After a refreshing swim off the beach we see the first tripper boat coming, so head back to Cloudy Bay before the peace is spoiled. Before we depart, I take to the water to knock some barnacles off and clean the waterline, which became pretty grubby after 11 days marina-bound.
Mid-morning we set sail west, towards Parguera town. The Swedish HR43, Glittra, that was anchored next to us, sailed off 2 hours ago in the same direction and now have a 12.5nm head start on us. We’ll see what we can do to narrow that lead 🙂
Yesterday we were a bit over powered so today we slightly reef the main (out to starboard) and full genoa poled out to port. The wind, at 16-20 kts, is slightly on our port quarter, so we are sailing the genoa slight by-the-lee again. Nicely powered up. Soon we are away from the shelter of Coffin Island, back in the waves and surfing along at 8-9kts. Lovely. There is absolutely nothing like a fast stable downwind sail. A real mile eater while we listen to the rhythm of the water rushing passed as we surge forward on a wave, then quiet as the wave passes under us. What a wonderful sound. It almost makes you sleepy!
After 3 hours we have narrowed the gap to Glittra by 5 miles. They are just 7 ahead of us now. But their AIS shows they are not planning to stop at Parguera. They appear to be continuing. We will watch where they go. Likely Cabo Rojo, where we will head to tomorrow.
Entering through the many reefs and cays as we approach Parguera is interesting to say the least. Behind each cayo (reef island) is a multitude of motor boats anchored, almost touching each other as they shelter in the calm waters and enjoy the shallow coral sand below them. It’s Easter week here so schools are off and lots on holiday. We can’t quite make it right next to the town of Parguera because it’s too shallow. So we anchor one set of cayo out.
When I dive the anchor all that I can see is a dark imprint in the seagrass exactly the shape of the anchor. But the anchor itself cannot be seen, it has completely disappeared deep down and even the fist 2m of chain. I’ve never seen it dig like that before! Generally I can always see a little bit of the actual anchor. But the wind is gusting to 25kts so Cloudy Bay is really tugging at her leash today.
After a late lunch the wind abates and we dinghy to the town. At first we cannot find anywhere to tie the dinghy – all docks and private with locked gates to the land. Eventually we find a tiny gap in the mangroves, just slightly wider than the dinghy itself, and we tie to the mangrove roots and paddle the last 2 meters on concrete stepping stones. We have managed to park the dinghy right in the heart of the town.
And what a lovely town it is today. Very clearly a popular holiday spot for locals. Loads of trinket shops and bars, all very clean and colourful. But it has that “kiss-me-quick” feel like a cheap seaside resort. We wander the street for a while then settle for a beer in the main square and watch the people go by. All in a holiday spirit. In one hour a band will start but we are sure it won’t be our kind of music and will be very loud.
So we gracefully retire back to Cloudy Bay to make our own cocktails and enjoy the full-moon evening. And we are glad we did. Once the band starts it’s already too loud even out here, at 200m away and as we guessed, not our music. So we retire below to a cinema evening.
A lovely day.
