Engine Problems, Walmarts and a hurricane

Puerto Rico is a gem in the Caribbean and a pleasure to visit. We started admiring the coast and beaches as we approached and soon fell in love with its reefs, mountainsides, waterfalls, history and people. Within a week, we also discovered Home Depot and Walmart and I’m truly embarrassed by the level of excitement I felt visiting McDonalds and ordering Domino’s pizza. We don’t usually take photos to memorialize these dubious moments, but they happen and I wanted you to know what kind of person is writing this! Seriously though, they may have overdone it with the Walmarts.

Speaking of capitalism, I find it interesting how prices go up when the US Dollar is accepted; whether that be food, services or even beer. Puerto Rico is far more expensive than the Dominican Republic though they have similar populations and share some culture and history. Puerto Rico is about 80% smaller than the Dominican Republic so the population is more dense but Puerto Ricans live longer, earn more, have fewer children and have better access to healthcare. Overall Puerto Rico is far more convenient and familiar for a visiting American and WAY easier for American sailors. We checked in electronically and didn’t need government permission to move from port to port.

Before we completely fell into shopping mode, we did explore the island and there’s a ton of stuff to do here. It would take years to see it all but we did what we could in the few weeks we were on the island. Personally, I enjoyed the forts in San Juan the most and visiting Richard (much of the the Kentucky Air National Guard was here at the time).

Wow, I just noticed that I look younger when my white beard and moustache is hidden! We also visited a National Park and its waterfalls and that was a pretty wonderful sight up in the mountains.

In Ponce, PR the Marina was in an awesome part of the island where there were great walking trails, parks and places to meet people and spend time outdoors.

…until the Hurricane swept by of course! It was well south of Puerto Rico but we still felts its winds and overall effects.

As we continue to work out way south, the temperatures are starting to climb. We haven’t seen many days above 90F but sometimes in a tight marina it can get a bit warm. If you look at the movie above, You’ll see that most boats are plugged into the Marina’s electrical grid. This allows them to have hot water, Air Conditioning and all the modern conveniences ALL THE TIME! Unfortunately, North America use 110v 60Hz and our boat is wired like the the rest of the world at 230v 50Hz. In short, we’ve been in the one part of the world where we can’t plug our boat into shore power!

Fortunately, we have an excellent solar and battery system on our boat which allows us to run our AC at night while we sleep. We also have a generator that can power the AC when we need it but neither of us want to hear or smell the generator running. We long for the day where we can just plug up into a Marina and have unlimited hot water and air conditioning. In fact, the closer we get to the equator, the closer we get to the kind of electricity can use!

This longing really began in Puerto Real, PR. We had a few hot days and decided to take a trip to Home Depot. By the end of the day, we had an AC solution that lets us plug into 110V marina electricity AND keep our boat cool day or night. Its a bit redneck I admit but its SUPER efficient, easy to break down and plugs right up to 110v shore power.

Of course that’s not the only DIY projects we had. We encountered some engine overheating problems, our anchor windlass decided to stop raising the anchor and our dinghy motor started acting up. Cruising is an amazing way to live and you really get the see the world and meet great people. There’s also a lot of maintenance/repair however and so its often referred to “Making boat repairs in exotic places”

Now that we’ve improved our engine cooling, changed the oil, replaced the anchor windlass, replaced the lazy jacks, swapped the generator’s DC regulator and restored the dinghy’s power we can continue our path east and south! We’re ready for more islands, fruity drinks and sunsets!