Boqueron - The warm up for our Puerto Rican Adventure.

I know one Puerto Rican very well.  My nephew Kevin married Michelle who was raised in NYC and Puerto Rico.  She has a huge personality, is loud, funny and is a very caring person.  This describes everyone in Puerto Rico!

We got to Boqueron just in time for the weekend.  The cruise guides said to be ready, as the Puerto Rican's are much more rambunctious than the Dominicans and you will hear some noise in the anchorage.  Boy they were spot on.

Mangrove "Adventure"

We spent Saturday afternoon in the dingy exploring some mangrove rivers.  Eagle eye Julianne spotted an iguana in one of the mangrove.  I had never seen that before.  Just as we left the mangroves we were approached by the "Cuerpo de Vigilantes de Recursos Naturales".  The US equivalent is the marine police.  These are the same guys that followed us as we approached the night before.  Seems appropriate the the word "Vigilantes" is plastered on the side of the boat.

Iguana in the Mangroves

They asked to see our life jackets.  I showed them two old moldy ones in the bilge.  They told us we had to wear them.  I could see that Julianne was panicking about putting on that moldy jacket.  I put them back in the bilge and the guy repeated that we need to put them on, this time more firmly.  I put up my one (index) finger for "hold on" and I quickly got two brand new inflatable jackets from inside the built in cooler under the seat.  Julianne and I gladly put them on. 

He then asked for my fire extinguisher.  I didn't know that a 12 ft boat had to carry a fire extinguisher, but luckily I didn't make a stink because he was right.  If a boat has an outboard with a built in gas tank, you must have a fire extinguisher.  That will be a new ad for the dingy when I can find one. We got away with only a warning.

On the Malecon

Julianne and I took the dingy into the dock in front of the Malecon on Saturday night.  A Malecon defined by Wikopedia as "a broad esplanade, roadway and seawall which stretches along the coast".  Boqueron had redone the street just in front of the harbor to create the Malecon to support their parties.  During the week, the Malecon is open for business, retail shops open, cars moving both ways over the concrete pavers, but come Friday through Sunday, the street is shut down and the party
begins.

The Old Man Trying to Fit In

Bands get a power cord or two from a local business and set up their amplifiers and drums in the middle of the Malecom.  The bands aren't more than 200 feet apart, yet they crank up the music to drown each other out.  The whole time everyone is watching or dancing in the streets.  Why didn't I find this place back in my 20"s ??? 

It was very cool to watch at 10 pm, but it got old in the anchorage when the singer with the loudest amplifiers did her final encore at 3:15 am.

We stayed both nights, we didn't go in in Sunday night as we continued our 100 percent success rate from another harbor tour.  We had visited Tibby and Kristen earlier in the day on their 42 ft catamaran, and they stopped by to visit just as it got dark.  Julianne served appetizers that ended up being dinner.  Fortunately the party on shore ended around 9 pm Sunday night.

We were up at first light Monday for a 2 hour passage to La Parguera, the first stop on our trip east along the southern coast of Puerto Rico.