West by Northwest

It seems that for us voyaging by sailboat is not as much an act as a movement which we do with slightly more control than a jellyfish. Plans come, they go, weather changes everything and controls what might come next.

A month ago Rike and I were debating whether to go to the Dominican Republic before going to the Bahamas. Then we made the trip from St Thomas to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands and met up with a family going our way on a boat named "Liberator". We traveled the south coast of Puerto Rico together with the intent to go to the Dominican Republic. Our first landfall in Puerto Rico was in the southern town of Salinas, then the city of Ponce from where we staged a foray via highway into San Juan. Our next stop was in a bay called Cayos de Cana Gorda, and there, for about five days we had some of our best cruising days.

It all started when I was doing a pitiful job trying to teach Celine windsurfing, an activity with which I am just getting comfortable. A guy on a windsurf came up to us and offered to teach Celine for free. Never one to say no to free stuff, I entrusted Celine into the hands of Gerd, a German who lives in a house with his, also German, wife Toni on the shores of the bay. Gerd not only got Celine and Anouck going on a windsurf, but also taught me a lot. Gerd and Toni told us all about what there was to see around the bay and there was plenty. In fact there was more to do than we could do in five days. Hence, Cayos de Cana Gorda is on our return list if only because Gerd and Toni were so welcoming.

From there we were supposed to sail with Liberator to Luperòn in the Dominican Republic, but a cold front came down and stalled. Added to all this was the potential development of a low just east of us and by the time the departure date came around winds were predicted to gust up to 50 knots in squalls. To make matters worst Gerd and Toni were telling us to stick around in this nicely protected bay where the kids could play in warm clear water, I could windsurf and dive for conch (which Gerd taught me how to extract from their shell). The meaning of this is that almost a week went by in a flash. Now we have just one month and a half left to sail to the northern part of the Bahamas and to get the boat ready for the transatlantic. This leaves the Dominican republic out of our route.

There is no complaining though. The cruising of the past month has been the best so far. Without enumerating everything, we have enjoyed the welcoming, the great diving, empty anchorages, the culture and the natural as well as man made sights.

San Juan dovetailed very nicely with Celine's recent history lessons of the "conquest" and Spanish settling of the "New World". With it's impressive fortifications and beautiful old streets San Juan did more to impress upon Celine and Anouck the power of Spain in it's heyday than any book could have done.

Back in Februrary we said good buy to the US and British Virgin Islands while taking Rebecca, our friend from Charlottesville, through our last tour of the islands. Now that we have discovered the nicer shores of the Spanish Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico we are saying that on our return trip we will concentrate more on the Windward Islands and pretty much jump to the Spanish side of the Caribbean unfortunately minus Cuba. Unless, of course, the tip of Florida finally sinks and stops holding us all hostage to the tyranny of the few.

After Rebecca's departure we headed for Culebra and Vieques where we had beaches and bays to ourselves and an ever-increasing sense of time and space. The night in the island of Vieques when we ventured with our dinghy at idle in the mangrove lined bioluminescent bay of Puerto Mosquito, was as magical for the girls as it was for Rike and I. When we landed in populated places the food was great and the people friendly. What a change from the other Virgins where the local population mostly behaves as if they wish we were not around.

So now we are anchored on the south western shore of Puerto Rico in the town of Boqueron, sad to have left our German hosts in their little corner of paradise a little prematurely as the weather looks like it will not settle for another couple of days. As I write our friends on "Liberator" are leaving towards iffy weather to meet waiting friends in the Turks and Caicos. When the weather does settle though, we will weigh anchor and look forward to a couple of days of uninterrupted sailing towards the Bahamas. Unless, of course, we do end up in the Dominican Republic, pushed by curiosity, other encounters, weather or currents . . .