We have been sailing in Puerto Rico for three weeks already, hard to believe! Our arrival was timed to pick up friends from Sweden, who planned on spending Easter with us. Entering the US on a sailboat was a new experience for us, and the US has been the most difficult country to enter by far. Firstly they prefer that you download an app and submit your entry request via the app, but we are on a boat – unless you have Starlink onboard, if you aren’t already carrying a US phone, either you don’t have phone service / data or it is ridiculously expensive.
So we tried to submit the request from the US Virgin Islands just on the border of Puerto Rico, but they refused to handle it because we were not in the harbor. You can’t buy a sim / phone card that works in the US from outside the US – we have bought cards that work across the entire Caribbean except the US but no one could sell us something that would work in the US until we entered the US. Then you aren’t technically allowed off your boat to buy a sim card until you have cleared in, so the US CBP needs to re-think how they expect people not carrying a US phone to use their app.
Arriving in Culebra, which is an official listed entry into the US, we were required to call the CBP (again, no US phone). Fortunately, Magnus’ Swedish phone sim card worked, although at a ridiculously high price per minute – the highest they charge. First the CBP in Culebra wasn’t there that day (no schedule or anything printed anywhere, it was a regular Thursday at 2pm). So we had to make several really expensive phone calls until we talked to CBP in Fajardo, who said we could just come there and clear in the next day.
Fortunately, the CBP office in Fajardo was really easy to work with, the officers were friendly and helpful. We still had to call them using our really expensive Swedish phone card prior to being allowed to come to the office, but it all got resolved and we were cleared in after the longest wait and most bureaucracy of any of the countries we have visited to date, and that’s not including the time, cost and effort involved last year in getting a visa for Magnus to be able to enter the US on a sailboat in the first place.
Once cleared into Puerto Rico, we started with provisioning the boat for the upcoming visit of our friends Linnea and Joel. Going to Walmart was great fun, I have been adding childhood favorites to my shopping cart and Magnus is getting a large dose of American cooking. The night of our friends’ arrival, we moved to the Marina at Puerto del Rey. It is according to them the largest single marina in the Caribbean with 700 berths, mostly motorboats. They have a couple miles of docks and the staff drive golf carts to get around the marina.
The marina had a great restaurant, we ate at the bar and people-watched. Around midnight, our friends arrived. After a good night’s sleep and a big breakfast, we headed off to the island of Vieques to the east of the main island, part of the “Spanish Virgin Islands”. The west side of Vieques was just beaches and mangroves and reefs, we snorkeled and walked the beaches and had a great first night with Linnea and Joel.
The next day we went back to Culebra, anchoring first just off the entrance to the bay to be able to take a swim, then moving into the calm harbor. We explored the tourist shops, visited the famous Flamenco Beach with a tank on it, and went to fun restaurants (Zaco’s Tacos was the best). During our visit to Culebra, we moved around between the harbor, the snorkeling beaches of Culebra, and the small island of Luis Pena which is a national park. We saw turtles, rays, coral and lots of smaller fish.
Easter saw the opening of our last jar of pickled herring that we were given by a Swedish woman on a superyacht. She saw that we were from her hometown, and gave us a big bag of Swedish goodies right before Christmas. We had saved one jar of herring, and I bought small potatoes on my provisioning, so we had a traditional Swedish Easter; singing songs and drinking rum as our schnaps.
After Easter, we went back to Fajardo and rented a car to tour the island. We visited the rain forest and national park El Yunque, and toured Old San Juan. It did rain on us in the rain forest, but not much and it was nice to have a bit cooler temperature. We hiked some of the smaller trails, several areas of the park are still closed after the hurricanes in 2017. In San Juan we parked our car and walked between the two large fortresses and through the city. There are a lot of well preserved structures from the Spanish years, and it was an easy walk through town. Old San Juan is the most beautiful city we have visited here in the Caribbean.
Of course, since we had a car, we also had to do some shopping! We found a shopping center that had food for Jodi and clothes for Linnea, so there was general happiness all around. On our way back from San Juan we even stopped at the Carolina IKEA store, but were very disappointed in their Swedish food shop and left without the items we had hoped to stock up on here in Puerto Rico. Since we eat the vast majority of our meals on the boat, the ability to find comfort food is important, and our last IKEA visit was 6 months ago on Teneriffe.
Our friends departed us after San Juan, and we spent a couple days just catching up on laundry and fortunately our buddy boat Skål – Americans – came to anchor next to us in Fajardo. We moved out to the lovely little Isla Palominos just outside Fajardo together with Skål, and even met a French boat that we have been seeing along our journey. Together we snorkeled, had sundowners, and enjoyed each other’s company for several days.
Now we are hanging out in a really protected natural harbor back on Vieques. The weather and waves are forecasted to be a bit rough, and our current anchorage is one of the calmest we have ever visited. We are trying to purchase some equipment and having the normal difficulties – our order from Selden was screwed up by Selden who sent the wrong items, and now Selden is saying that they can’t send us the part numbers we ordered. Fortunately, we are working with a great rigger who is trying to help us out, but we are not surprised.
Jodi also fell for a phishing attempt, and tried to make a payment with three cards before giving up. So now we also have to figure out how to get replacement cards here. Sigh.
Life is good, it is warm and sunny for the most part, we swim, we snorkel, we take care of the boat. Fair winds and following seas to all of you!