Puerto Rico is oddly described as an ‘unincorporated territory of the United States’ which we couldn’t quite figure – it is, but it isn’t American. Our US visas were not required here and in that sense we checked in as though they were a separate country.
20 April 2003
The islands of Vieques and Culebra make up the Spanish Virgin Islands and are part of Puerto Rico. We stopped at Sunbay in the centre of the southern coast of Vieques which is a wonderfully unspoilt and mostly uninhabited island. Refreshingly, we saw almost no other yachts.
After one night we crossed the Vieques Sound and anchored at Puerto Patillas, on the south coast of the main island of Puerto Rico and then moved straight on to Ponce where we could check in. Once again, this was expensive, $19 for a sailing permit, but the short handsome gentleman who processed our papers was so charming and courteous we didn’t mind at all.
The Yacht Club at Ponce
Ponce wasn’t a good anchorage and we’d snucked in illegally at the yacht club, so after two days we moved to Boqueron on the west coast. There were a lot of yachts here and we met some old friends and made a few new acquaintances. The Puerto Rican people were casual and friendly and time passed pleasantly enough. Despite the intense heat, there were portable little stands on every street corner selling inexpensive fresh oysters by the dozen. I’d never plucked up sufficient nerve to eat a fresh oyster before, but this seemed a good spot to give it a go, so I did and they were good. Mike adores them and tucked into a dozen every time we went ashore.
Oyster Stand in Boqueron
We left Puerto Rico and set off northwest on a four day sail, to the Turks & Caicos group. Still in Puerto Rican (U.S.) waters at 6.00pm that evening, just as I was cooking dinner (we liked to eat and get the dishes done before nightfall) we spotted a large motor launch to starboard which seemed to be ‘lingering’ alongside us. Sure enough, they hailed us on the radio – identifying themselves as the US Coast Guard – and enquired where were we heading? Unable to curb my habit of giving too much information, I advised that we were heading for the Bahamas and thereafter, Florida. After a short break the man politely requested permission to board. Very startled we were! Of course, I said. It seemed pointless to refuse. It took ages for them to get organised, (I had to take dinner off the stove and store it) but eventually they brought a substantial dinghy alongside and SIX large young men in very military-looking heavy duty dark navy outfits climbed aboard, followed by a seventh who was obviously their leader. Forever nearly sank. The leader sat in the cockpit with us whilst the other six, sweating profusely, poor lambs, went through our little boat with a fine tooth comb. Eventually, when his six underlings had returned to the cockpit, empty handed and puce in the face, the top dog radioed his superior officer on the mother ship to announce that the captain and his wife had been obliging and helpful and that nothing of concern had been found. Bewildered, we asked him what he might be looking for. He answered, rather pompously, “Anything that might harm the United States of America”. I’m sorry to say we weren’t very appreciative of their concern. A year and a half at sea and we had all but forgotten awful things like terrorism, but the ‘9/11’ tragedy still hung heavily over the American people. He then stood up, lifting his generous backside off the lid to our cockpit locker, the largest storage area on the yacht into which no one had looked and in which we could have stashed great quantities of all sorts of contraband – refugees, guns, drugs. Ushering them off the boat in the near dark I asked if they subjected all yachts to this sort of treatment and he said no, of course not. He apologised for the inconvenience and then admitted that his men were in training so this had been a ‘good exercise’ for them. Ha. We had a good laugh about it over a very late dinner. We would have a less laughable run-in with the US authorities later in the year.
We soldiered on through gale force winds for four more days, skipping past the Dominican Republic, and arrived at French Cay in Turks & Caicos on 2 May. There were FOUR wrecks dotted around the island, so we were very careful anchoring! There was a U.S. police boat anchored next to us which gave us the jitters after our last encounter, but we were left in peace. Then we spent another night on an excellent government mooring buoy at West Caicos with nothing but one large barracuda for company. Next stop, the Bahamas.
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