March 19-25, 2006 -- Boqueron, San Juan shopping, and Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico

Boqueron can best be described as “funky”. It is a small town on a long beach, whose chief purpose is to be a weekend party place. The narrow main street is lined with the usual restaurants and t-shirt shops, and with open stalls selling oysters and clams. Fortunately, were anchored far enough out that the party noises didn’t keep us awake at night.

The weather has been benign, so there are many cruising boats taking advantage of it and arriving from the west, across the Mona Pass. We shared time and stories with a number of them who are looking for info about points south, where we have been and they are headed. A South African couple gave us some fresh mahi-mahi they had caught on the way across. We enjoyed several visits with Peter and Connie on “Justoo”, from Kelowna. This seemed like a particularly nice bunch of boaters, and we wished we were all traveling the same direction. We did bump into one couple, Elizabeth and Ken on “Jade Moon”, whom we had known in Puerto la Cruz, who are going our way. They will be a week or so ahead of us, but we may catch up to them again in the Bahamas.

We arranged to rent a car for three days for the reasonable price of $120, which included a pick-up and drop-off from Mayaguez, the nearest city, about 40 minutes away. What a treat to find Wal-Mart, Sears, Penny’s, etc., in the Mayaguez Mall, and big supermarkets for stocking up on groceries. We were disappointed in the fresh produce, but everything else was great. We ate lunch and indulged in the salad bar at Ponderosa, and enjoyed practicing our Spanish again. Most people here speak English, but Spanish is Puerto Rico’s first language.

The closest West Marine store is in San Juan, so we drove the distance over excellent toll roads and freeways, enjoying the mountainous Puerto Rico scenery en route. It took us a while to locate the store in the maze of on-ramps and off-ramps, and necessitated a stop at the huge Mall of Las Americas, much to Cliff’s chagrin. We didn’t linger there, though, as it was Cliff’s turn for a shopping day. His shopping days are much more expensive, though, and we left West Marine with a new GPS, cockpit stereo speakers, new spinnaker sheet, and more.


Our final day with the car was spent touring more of the countryside, and finding our way to the Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio-telescope. Of necessity, it is located in a remote area in the mountains accessed by small and winding roads, so it is surprising when you arrive to be greeted by such a massive complex. Photos don’t really do justice to the scale of the place. Suffice it to say it looks just like it did in the movie “Contact” with Jodie Foster, or “Gold Eye”, the James Bond movie.