Puerto Rico

 A bit of history lesson on Puerto Rico:

Puerto Rico is approximately 110 miles long by 35 miles wide and covers over 300 miles of coastline.  13% of it is occupied by the US military and 33% of the population lives in the San Juan area.  The highest peak is 4,400' and the higher mountains are near the south and east coast.The northern part is green and lush while the southern coast is a bit more arid.  The island is surrounded by an irregular shallow submarine shelf, seven miles wide at the widest.  Two miles north the sea floor drops to over a thousand fathoms!  Deeper still is the Puerto Rican Trench where the ocean floor plunges to depths of 28,000', 45 miles north of Puerto Rico...that's over 5 miles deep!  Puerto Rico has held a commonwealth association with the US since 1952.  This basically means they are American citizens that do not vote or pay taxes.  The first non-Indian to discover PR was, of course, Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the new world in 1493.  No attempt for civilization was made until Juan Ponce de Leon from Spain in 1508.  During the Spanish-American War  the US claimed PR as a war prize.

Now continuing on to my story:

After resting in Boqueron its time to move along the south coast.   I am excited to be fishing again and have high hopes of some awesome snorkeling and diving!  Our next big stay was is a town called La Paraguera on the south coast.  We snorkeled in Cayo Caracoles and on a place called Gilligan's Island.  It wasn't bad, but I expected it to have alot more fish than it did.

                         Cute little town of Boqueron, pirates and deck wenches included.

                                              

                                              And I did manage to catch a Little Tunny!

We did some provisioning in Ponce, a big city with malls and McDonald's, etc.  The Ponce Yacht Club was reasonably priced and there were hundreds of fishing boats there.  We like to anchor out and spend the money on other things.

I am not sure why I didn't care for Puerto Rico that much, I guess it was more like the US surrounded by water, but not as many people.  Maybe my expectations were too high, but I would go back and see the island again and spend time away from the coast.  The people were friendly and easy to get along with.  I would consider living here after checking out the whole island.  Prices were reasonable too.  I guess my favorite place was Coffin Island, a small island off the south coast were we took a hiking trail to a run down church.  The views were spectacular.  BTW at about this time my camera was dyeing.

                                                  Along the trail there were huge cactus.

           Maybe it was a lighthouse we saw not a church.  all these old buildings start to blend.

                                        From the top, we could see our boat in the distance.

                   Photos just don't do justice to the actual experience, but you get an idea.

Our refrigeration system wasn't working right and getting worse by the day, so while the other cruisers (we had meant 4 others from Luperon who had left a few weeks before us) left to go to the Spanish Virgin Islands - Vieques and Culebra, we had to beat north to Fajardo.  We missed out on Vieques where there was a place called Phosphorescence Bay - a glowing bay of water.  We will hit it on the way back though!

                                  Those people in Salinas sure have a strange way of living!

                                        A resort off of Fajardo, they cover the whole island.

                                                  They were alot of shipwrecks there.