USVIs and Puerto Rico

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 02:10:00 -0500

After Crystal and her delightful adult daughters left us, we sailed to Saint John to meet up with some of our Baton Rouge friends. We spent a few days between floating behind Velvet Elvis, hanging out at the beautiful pool at their rental house, and exploring the bay and the island.

Like so many of the places we visited, we just got a taste of St. John, and it was enough to know that we need to go back and spend more time.

Amazing view from friends' rental house.
From there, we did an easy day sail to St. Thomas, where we anchored by a touristy beach near the cruise dock. It was nothing special. I'm sure St. Thomas has some great anchorages. Yet another place where we need to spend more time.

The next day, we jumped into high waves and pounded our way to Vieques, Puerto Rico. Sarah and Rick met us there, and it was much like St. John -- float at Velvet Elvis, float at a rental house with a view of the sea, and explore a little.

We had a long and fun stop at a rum distillery. It had a beautiful outdoor bar overlooking lush greenery and wild horses. There was a little stand there with pretty good food. And the rum was okay too.

Rum Tasting
On our last day, our friend JC flew over to join the crew. JC, Kolya, and I did the kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay. I thought this was just amazing. You would swing your hand through the water, and it would light up with a streak of green light, as if you were a wizard. The kayaks had clear bottoms, so as you paddled through, you got a light show of sparkles under your legs the whole way.

There wasn't really much more to it than that, but it did feel like magic, and I could have stayed longer.

We sailed from Vieques to Culebra, another Puerto Rican island that is not Puerto Rico. It was like Vieques, but greener, prettier, and by all appearances, more wealthy. We spent a day walking around the town and taking the dinghy to bar and grill type spots. I like this island quite a bit.

Hector the Protector, Culebra Puerto Rico
Our final US Island stop was in San Juan. I had pictured a very large marina with lots of services, but there really isn't that. We grabbed a safe place to anchor as hurricane Beryl passed a hundred miles south and spent a couple of days getting in our steps through Old San Juan. Nothing really to relate there -- just a cool old European-looking city with plenty of food, souvenirs, and bars.

On the fiasco front, we started having trouble with dinghy fuel. A pinhole on the fuel line had gotten bigger, and jerry-rigged solutions were working less and less. It ended up being a fairly easy repair, where I just cut off the broken bit and reattached the hose, but I'd really like to replace the end that connects to the engine also.

More concerning was that one of the control pads for the air conditioning went out. We made do my moving the other one back and forth, but then one day, some salt water splashed on the spare and we were down to none. Air conditioning was fun while it lasted.

Ice Cream in Old San Juan