San Juan Culture

Old San Juan is home to two UNESCO World Heritage sites – the forts of El Morro and San Cristobel. Entry is refreshingly cheap and these are run by the US National Parks service. For a Brit, it is slightly comedic to see the Park Rangers in their khaki shirts, green shorts and distinctive wide-brimmed fawn hats as our only exposure to the traditional uniform is through Yogi Bear cartoons.  However, everyone goes out of their way to help and make the trip enjoyable. The children spent two days exploring every labyrinthine twist and turn in both forts and we were not permitted to leave until they had been down every passage, groped through every tunnel and peeked through every doorway. Even the graffiti is historic with many sketches of Spanish galleons on the walls and shutters.

As the smallest of the Greater Antilles, the wildlife is very different to the smaller Lesser Antilles. Just in the city, it is obvious how much more diverse the bird species are with white-winged doves now common, many more passerines and noisy groups of monk parakeets swarming the old town coast. Nearer our anchorage, the local beach has calm waves protected from the prevailing surf. A sculpture garden has been erected in the shallows and has attracted reef fish in for snorkelers to admire. We now see the distinctive porkfish as well as blue tang and ocean surgeonfish, and even saw a night sergeant. We were not prepared to carry Matthew’s buoyancy aid around town so he was forced into the sea without it and found that he could indeed snorkel unaided. He is thrilled at finally being able to swim, but only with mask and snorkel as he still sits rather low in the water. Back in the old town, we revisited Pigeon Park with broken crackers where the feral pigeons crawl all over you to get a morsel. James and Elizabeth took to catching the tamer birds whilst Matthew just chased them. We then drank cheap beer in a Madrid-style bar and wandered the leafy avenues. We could really get to like San Juan.

Our autohelm is literally just outside warranty based on purchase date but well within time based on installation. Although the UK agent was keen to try for a warranty claim, Simrad dug their heels in and we’ve been forced to spend several hundred pounds on a new unit. James is not impressed as we bought it at the Boat Show in January but the unit was not installed before April, so we effectively lost three months’ worth of warranty for the show discount. The replacement is not as sophisticated as the one that failed but should arrive on Monday which will allow us to continue on Tuesday.

We are now significantly behind our planned schedule and are running out of time to reach Chesapeake before I have to leave at the end of April. James has suggested we miss out the Bahamas completely now and make the 1200nm passage from here non-stop to Florida. This will help make up some time as well as making clearing back into the US mainland easier as we will not have visited any foreign ports, and save us the exorbitant $300 fee charged by the Bahamas to all visiting foreign vessels. We were always reticent about this charge as, with our deep draft, there are very few places we can visit anyway in the Bahamas and will have to miss great chunks of the 700 islands as the waters are far too shoal, with hundreds of square miles less than 1m deep. I had hoped to dive the blue sink holes of Abacos, join a shark feed or kayak the mangroves of Lucayan National Park, but these can wait. Our plan is now to try to reach Miami in time for Elizabeth’s birthday, where we will hire a car to visit Tampa and the Everglades.

Welcome to Civilisation

Puerto Rico boasts many superlatives, much loved by Americans. The smallest of the Great Antilles, has a population of 4 million and the first ‘proper’ cities we’ve seen since leaving Europe. As we crossed the Pasaje San Juan from Culebra to the mainland, it was like a scene from Logan’s Run. We were conditioned to vistas of mountains, forests and small towns and had crossed in heavy rain. As the mist lifted, our eyes took in the rainforests and mountains of El Yunque tumbling down to the skyscrapers among the forested foothills of the coast. The northern coast is similarly contrasting with large developments around the mangroves and reefs until the sprawl of San Juan itself comes into view.

San Juan is the second oldest European-founded settlement in the Americas and the oldest in the USA. The US guide waxes lyrical about the 16^th Century culture, UNESCO World Heritage forts, architecture, galleries and museums. The USA was only ceded the protectorate from Spain after a war just over a century ago, so it is a recent addition and the language is still Spanish. The guide warns of street crime in the capital but also that visitors need not be obsessed with safety and “the overall safety of the area is high in comparison to many other Caribbean destinations”.

It also boasts the USA’s only tropical rainforest, its oldest wildlife reserve and the cheapest beer in the Caribbean. As well as beer, the Bacardi rum factory is just the other side of the harbour to us. Nestling on the north coast, San Juan has “some of the best municipal beaches this side of Rio de Janeiro”, the first one being just a few hundred metres from the anchorage. A little further is the SoFo district “with enough cutting edge restaurants to justify a trip in its own right.”

The city made us forget we weren’t in Europe with the Spanish colonial architecture and 500 year old fortifications. The city’s streets remain as they were when the USA acquired the protectorate, complete with verandas, balustrades and cobbles. It is stunningly beautiful and you only need cross a couple of narrow streets to escape the touristic souvenirs into quiet residential alleys where each frontage is a different pastel shade and each veranda overflows with plants.

The city remains much as it was a century ago with the fortified walls intact. The Governor still lives in the first fort to have been built, La Fortaleza, whilst the other two defences are UNESCO Word Heritage sites. The seat of government is La Casa Blanca – an imposing white marble building not dissimilar to Capitol Hill in Washington and everything is within a short walk. On the sea front, a working replica of the Amistad lies alongside between the cruise ships, whilst a working replica Spanish Galleon (complete with modern diesel engine) is ahead of her and open for tours.

The Wonders of US Customs

We had arrived yesterday in Culebra at lunchtime to allow plenty of time to clear Croix des Gardes into the US Protectorate. We were stymied when we were told we had to find our own way to the inland airport and would not be seen before 10am the next morning. We had intended to clear in and continue the 55nm to San Juan so suggested we remain aboard and continue to the capital as planned to clear in there. The officer agreed.

We had a quiet night in a bay off Culebra where the children swam off the boat but we were careful not to go ashore. In the night, the wind swung round 270 degrees which kept James then me up most of the night checking the anchor. At 4am I decided enough was enough and we set off in the dark for San Juan. The initial passage was to travel up inside the cays and reefs that join the northern edges of Puerto Rico to Culebra so we needed to make sure we arrived at the San Juan Passage in daylight.

The wind was a light northerly and I ran under full sail whilst James slept. Within an hour, the wind had strengthened and backed a little, then the rain started. We had a miserable crossing in the end with increasing wind as a cold front passed, bringing increasing swells and 4m waves. To top it all, April the autohelm failed to boot up so we had to helm by hand in heavy seas. When we reached San Juan, both children were sick (Elizabeth four times) and we were aching and soaked. I have never been so grateful to enter a large industrial port in my life, although the entrance was a bit sporting with the large swell running in whilst we had to gybe to make the channel.

We anchored twice in the harbour (the pilot suggested we move after our first attempt) and again tried to clear in. This time their computers were down so we had to wait, and wait, and wait. Then they were all in a training meeting, then they couldn’t ring a UK number, then it was shift change. I thought we would be trapped aboard forever. We tried to entertain the kids by showing “Ponyo” on the DVD (the story features the sea taking revenge with huge waves etc). On the plus side, we are anchored near the children’s favourite superyacht, Panthalassa! Regardless of how long it takes, we cannot make the next four day crossing to the Bahamas without an autohelm.

After four hours of trying and countless phone calls, we finally spole to a customs officer who was extremely helpful. We rushed ashore to meet the 6pm deadline and piled inot a taxi which took us to the wrong place. So we piled inot another taxi and cleared in. We now have US entry and a cruising permit for Croix des Gardes.

To celebrate, we ate at the “Sizzlers” diner at the marina which included an unlimited buffet. All of us are now stuffed on steak, fries, salads, texmex and ice-creams.

Arrival in USA

James noticed a really large cultural difference in making the switch to USA Protectorate here in the Caribbean. Suddenly, we are in the home of good service. We had a coffee in a diner in St. Johns and the waitress could not have been more engaging, polite and helpful. She smiled, she brought refills as soon as our cups were empty, she was prompt with the ‘cheque’. It has been a feature further south that many establishments made us feel like the customer was more of an inconvenience than an asset. Many American proprietors have told us how hard it is to run a hospitality business further south. They are forced to recruit locals, but these people come from a history of slavery and white oppression and so really do not do ‘service industry’. So the American needs to employ a load of ex-pats to pick up where the locals leave off and costs double.

The passage to Culebra was quiet. We set off in darkness in light airs, so motored, then sailed, then motored, then sailed again and finally motored. Even in the Virgin Passage, there was barely a ripple on the sea. The trip was punctuated by some bad news from home – a fox had broken in to our neighbour’s chicken coop and had killed and eaten both our children’s pet bantams, Choccy and Lavender. Matthew and Elizabeth seem detached enough now from Conington life that they did not take the news too badly, although I understand the neighbour’s children were very upset as they had grown fond of our mini-chickens.

USA Today

This morning we took a daytrip to the USA. Really. Turns out that our electronic visa waivers would not be valid if our first entry was by private yacht. The solution – take a commercial ferry from the BVI to the USVI, clear US Homeland Security, then head back again. Crazy.

The ferry trip was more fraught than clearing immigration – another ferry operator's boat had broken so our one was overbooked and full of stressed Yanks eager to get to St. Thomas to catch connecting flights home. We were entertained, though, by Nichole who happened to be performing aboard a catamaran just off the ferry dock. Small world. Once we landed, the Customs and Border protection officer was well versed in what we were trying to achieve and we sped through the whole process in minutes –much better than arriving via and international airport. We're now good for Puerto Rico and mainland US for 90 days.

The weather further north is settling down so we intend to move to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands (which are actually part of Puerto Rico and therefore the USA) tomorrow to obtain the boat's US clearance, then move on for a day in San Juan before heading straight off to Matthew Town in the Bahamas and bypassing Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos to make up some miles.

Peter Island 2

Many are saying how unseasonal the weather is this year. The locals are revelling in the unusual coolness and hoping it lasts, as the summers can be unbearably hot. The cruisers are commenting on the 'northers' still plaguing the Bahamas with gale force northerlies. For us Europeans, the climate seems perfect – hot days and warm nights. However, we cannot sensibly move on until we see a decent window. The Bahamas offer little shelter from gale-force winds, even 25C ones, and there are fewer places to go ashore and take stock when you draw 8ft. Cabin fever is a real possibility if we get the wrong side of a strong blow. We hope to run through to cover the 1200 miles to Florida as quickly as possible.

The locals also are keen to chat about life in the BVIs. Although they seem so westernised after the more southern Antilles, ex-pats find that life is remote and monotonous after Europe, the US or South Africa. They crave some culture – museums, cinemas, concerts – and also crave the temperate weather, basking in the prospect of snow and cold. Despite this, they admit that they are well placed for groceries and restaurants. The BVIs have a higher GDP per capita than the UK and everyone makes a good living. Most of this is off the charter boat trade, bringing wealthy tourists with money to burn, determined to have a good time and eat well. We shall provision thoroughly before leaving as it seems unlikely we'll get such good, or any, supplies through the Bahamas with our limiting draft and isolated cays.

Life has not always been so comfortable in the BVIs. On Peter Island we explored a ruined house that belonged to a New Hampshire family who had gone bankrupt. The large house was overgrown collapsing, with just the servants' furniture and a few rusting kitchen appliances left. It would have been an imposing dwelling, situated on a sharp ridge between two exclusive bays, complete with their own private jetty. The children delighted in the dilapidation and found lizards, hermit crabs, caterpillars and cocoons in the debris.

Matthew cannot stay out of the water. He snorkels as soon as he wakes up and is now confident to be in the water alone and some distance from the boat. This morning I spotted a large turtle near our anchor chain and Matthew had the opportunity to swim with it excitedly for some minutes. Once we retrieved him, we sailed for the smallest inhabited island of the BVIs, Jost.

Peter Island (1/3/13)

We finally decided to stay put. We had returned to Little Harbour off Peter Island and this time managed to get a stern line ashore. The circular bay is fringed with coral bommies and fish at about 5m depth, then drops sharply down to a central sandy bed at 20m. We have our anchor in the deep sand at the drop off and our keel is just 1m above the coral and a couple of boat lengths from the shore. During the day, pelicans dive bomb the water for fish, whilst at dusk they are replaced by insectivorous bats. By the morning, the water is still and clear and we can watch the fish awaken beneath our keel.

The reef continues to astound Matthew. His favourite pastime is snorkelling and then devouring the pages of the reef fish guide we have on board. He can now recognise the most common species – yellow-tail snapper, bar jack, stoplight parrotfish, bluehead wrasse, sergeant major, needlefish, barracuda, squirrelfish, blue tang, porcupine fish, queen parrotfish. I was also encircled by a school of almaco jacks which turn out to be uncommon to rare here (I did manage to photograph them!).

James ran some engine checks and drained the sludge and dreaded 'diesel bug' from our tanks ready for refuelling. We have reverted to the Royal Harwich burgee now we have a blue ensign to fly, and again other cruisers are asking after our beautiful boat (although some still ask if she's wood cased in glass). Our house flag and British Classic Yacht Club pennants are looking a bit tatty now compared to our new defaced blue. James will also do a rigging check from up the mast ready for our next bluewater passage. As we are now into March, it may be possible to visit Puerto Rico. This is a US territory and so the only restriction is that the 90days visa waiver will begin as soon as we clear in and James does not want to leave the east coast of the US on the transat home before June.