May 31, 2011... Ponce

In Salinas, we spent time with Babbie and Ronnie on Campechano, who we met in Grenada last year. When we got back from touring in the north, Ronnie offered to show us his hometown, Ponce, and we set off for a whirlwind tour. From the minute we neared the city, Ronnie gave us history lessons, info about how everything in town was built or renovated, and showed us places we never would have gotten to on our own.

Starting in the center of town at the historic plaza, we stopped at the Catedral de Nuestra Senora; the old wooden firehouse, Parque de Bombas, with its antique fire engine; walked up the Atocha pedestrian mall; visited the market building designed by Eiffel of Paris tower fame (where Ronnie found nispero, a fruit we had to try -- good!); went back to the plaza for the best ice cream in the country (we all had yummy peanut flavor); got in the car and headed up into the hills.

For a real treat, Ronnie took us to the Castillo Serralles in El Vigia. This is now a museum but was the Serralles family home, built early in the 20th century. This family ran the sugar business in Ponce and now runs the rum company that makes Don Q, Ronrico, and Captain Morgan, among other brands. The house and gardens are absolutely magnificent and the view over Ponce is gorgeous. The board (on which Ronnie sits) decided to add a butterfly garden to the grounds and we stopped to see those too. What a fantastic place -- too bad we don't have a big party to throw -- this would be the spot!

Next stop on the itinerary was the port area, the Paseo Tablado La Guancha boardwalk and the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club, all of which Ronnie had a part in building. We had anchored here last year -- it was certainly nice to get an idea from the land side how things looked.

Once we had exhausted Ponce, we drove to Juana Diaz, a small town to the east, as Ronnie had a hankering for some mabi and thought we should try it too. This refreshing drink made of fermented tree bark really did hit the spot after our visit to Ponce. We can never thank Ronnie -- our ambassador from Ponce -- enough, for this terrific day.

May 30, 2011... El Yunque

For the last day of the car rental we drove out of the Old City and headed to a very popular cruiser destination, West Marine! Stocked up on toilet paper among other things and drove across to Plaza Las Americas mall for the Borders bookstore where we added to our Spanish-language Garcia Marquez collection and some DVDs.

Then on to El Yunque rainforest. This is part of the US Forest Service system and has a fabulous welcome center with lots of information, and the rangers had the rare Puerto Rican parrot available to see. (Apparently they are pretty hard to see in the wild.) Driving through the forest the vegetation gets very dense. Patti's favorites, the giant ferns, make you feel like you are in a science fiction movie -- like radiation made everything super-sized. Luckily for us, there was no rain that day, so we didn't have to slosh around on the trails. Everywhere we looked was another gorgeous view or beautiful trees, flowers, waterfalls and streams. Enjoy the photos!

May 28-29, 2011... Old San Juan

We rented a car for 3 days and took off on a Friday for Old San Juan. The trip from Salinas is under an hour and we found a parking spot on the street. Dropped our stuff at Da House Hotel on San Francisco street and started walking. What a gorgeous city! Most of the old buildings have been restored; facades maintained, colors magnificent. The Spanish influence apparent as the buildings have airy courtyards and iron balconies; the Moorish influence seen in the tiles and columns. A photographer's paradise (John took over 500 pictures...no, we won't post them all here...)

Of course it was hot, why shouldn't it be as we trudged up to El Morro, the fort, and inspected every nook and cranny, and enjoyed the views in every direction. Guard duty in one of these sentry boxes wouldn't be so bad as long as the sea breeze was blowing. We saved the Fort San Cristobal for the second day -- this one even bigger than El Morro -- and walked and walked and walked.

Dinners out were special -- after eating on the boat for several weeks it was nice to splurge on ceviches at Auerola and fantastic Italian food at Il Bacaro. We'd go back to both of those places. We only wish we had more time to explore more restaurants in town. Next time!

May 18-31, 2011... Salinas

With the engine running again, Anhinga puttered into Salinas. We'd visited last year when Galen was on board so it was familiar and we knew where to anchor. Our plan was for a few days, but our stay extended as we had repairs to make and called in the pros for them. Those appointments turned into 'waits for the cable guy' as they never seemed to be able to get here when they said they would. On the plus side, we got our autopilot fixed. But, we decided not to fix the engine-driven refrigeration and to spring for a new DC fridge installation powered by solar instead. That will be done elsewhere.

One day we walked into town with the camera -- we had really liked Salinas last year and wanted to go back. The town square has beautiful old trees and the buildings are pretty special.

 The old market building attracts lots of people, including the dominoes players who had an active game on when we stopped. It was there that we met Tony -- another of the Puerto Ricans who left the island for the U.S. when he was 17 and now returned 60 years later. Tony comes to town from the countryside for some company and conversation and was so pleased to meet us and speak English. Hope he is successful in convincing his daughter to let him buy that pickup truck so that he can start a vegetable stand out of the truck bed!

In the anchorage we kayaked around the mangroves looking for manatees -- didn't see any, though maybe we were lucky not to. At 1500 pounds, we might have been a little too close for comfort. But we saw something new for us -- frigates perched on mangroves. All over the Caribbean you see frigates soaring above the water hunting. But here they were, close to the water, not bothered by us at all.

Salinas: 17d57.320'N 66d17.524'