Adventures with Christine - Day 1 & 2

On Saturday, May 22, 2021, Christine arrived at Puerto del Rey Marina around 3pm after a 4 hour flight out of Philadelphia and a 1 1/2 hour taxi ride from San Juan. By 3:15, we were off the dock and headed for  Isla Palominos, intended to be a short motor sail into a pleasant anchorage for the evening. We arrived to a relatively crowded bay with loud Puerto Rican style disco music blaring for the floating noodle parties. Oh well, if you can’t stop them, join them. Our friend, Arturo assured us that most of the crowd would leave just before sundown and sure enough most did, except for the loudest one that was closest to us! As we had anchored and mooring balls were freeing up, we decided to weigh anchor and check out another location. Unfortunately, the ball we picked up had a frayed line and was so protected from the wind that the boats in the area were pointed in every which direction. We decided to slip the mooring and re-anchor in the breeze. There was a bit of a storm coming but the boats were spaced out nicely and pointing into it. We went below to prepare a shrimp curry for dinner and have a pleasant sleep.

I’m usually up a couple times at night, especially when at anchor, checking the lines and making sure we are holding ground. Although it was blowing 15-20 most of the night, we were still lined up with the same lights on shore and boats in the bay... until we weren’t! Around 6am (when I’m usually in my deepest sleep), I heard a loud metal crunching sound that’s never good on a boat!! I woke Andrew as I climbed over him to check it out. He rolled over and said “Probably the anchor line”. After a second metal crunching, the next sound I heard was a frantic women’s voice with a Spanish accent saying “Alo? ALO?” At this point, Andrew was up and bolting out the companionway in his underwear and I was headed the other direction to get a top on. By the time I made it topside, Andrew had the motor started and the wheel on. (We take the wheel off when at anchor to make a larger cockpit.) The wind was howling, the waves were probably 2-3 foot in the harbor and it was piercing rain that made our eyes bloodshot. All I could see was the bowsprit of a power boat and it’s anchor chomping on our stern. While Andrew tried to move us forward, our visitor, her shipmate and I were trying to unhook the anchor and push the boats apart. After a few panicky minutes, we finally separated and got to the task of pulling up our anchor, which apparently did not hold. Oh, and good morning, Christine! How do you like sailing with us so far!! 

Andrew has taken great pride in doing a lot of research in finding the “best anchor in the world” and up to this point, the Sarca Exel had been doing splendidly but the wind had veered 180 degrees and a squall hit with gusts up to 30 knots. Wonder how the 2nd best anchor or the tattered mooring would have done? When we dragged down on the moored power boat, it’s pulpit knocked our dinghy motor askew, bent the propeller, bent the stainless tubing that supports our wind generator and scratched a few chunks out of our toe rail paint but in all, we were fortunate. No one was hurt and it didn’t look like we did any damage to the other boat. On the way out of the harbor, we motored by to check it out and give them our contact info.

With the wind out of the north, the plan for Day 2 was to sail to Culebra but it shifted to the ENE and it was a bit of a slog. We motor-sailed for four hours before finally arriving at Ensanada Honda Bay, a well protected harbor with a view of the town dock, a closed restaurant, a draw bridge that never draws and people-less buildings with driveways that went straight up into the hills. 

Upon finding what looked like good holding for our anchor, we saw a note on the chart that said “Note B - Mariners are cautioned against anchoring, dredging or trawling in this area due to the possible existence of unexplored ordinance.” With all the boats anchored around us, we figured there was no way ordinance could be a problem. Not sure what Christine was thinking at this point but we once again we settled in for a good meal and a calm night’s sleep.