2024-01-21 We've been shot! - well the dink anyway.

We arrived in Salinas around noon on Sunday last.  Salinas is a very protected harbor, where many sailors stop to provision and to leave the boat to rent cars to tour Puerto Rico.   We were greeted by two manatee on our way into the anchorage.

Two manatee that approached the boat as we came into the anchorage

We went extra slow as they came right up to the boat

They left as we motored further into the anchorage area.   Next day a nice walk in order, took our dinghy to the local marina, who provides a dinghy dock for free.  We checked in with the marina, to make sure all was OK, and if there was a dinghy dock fee, and also got a phone number for a local rental car.

A quick walk through town, up to the large Econo grocery store, lunch out and walk back.

Kris always takes chicken photos.  This yard had pigeons as well

Large Econo supermarket and large "future" area for development

Lunch at Wendys - stale fries

Back at boat, nice rainbow over the anchorage in Salinas

We arranged a rental car for the next day, as we needed to get some plumbing parts to fix our broken coolant drain line on the port engine.

Dean behind the wheel - haven't driven in a while

Quite a few bananas grown in the area

We arranged the car for 9:00, but it was closer to 10:00 before we were on the road.  After drivng to Ponce and going to Home Depot, WalMart, National Hardware, Pep Boys auto parts and a quick lunch at McDonalds, it was 3:00 already, so we did not have enough time to do the scenic driving we wanted, so took a shorter scenic drive on our way back to Salinas, up into the hills to drive by Lago Toa Vaca, (All cow lake?) a large reservoir.   

Lago Toa Vaca at the dam

Spillway from dam, and downstream from dam

The countryside is very hilly, and quite steep.  Some of the roads are quite narrow,  and very few had a center line to seperate traffic.

Quite hilly and steep

We got back to the dinghy dock before dark, but to our dismay, found the bow section of the dinghy completely deflated.  Dean took a few groceries to the boat while I waited at the dock, and then grabbed the pump and came back for the rest of the groceries and me.  I pumped the dink while on our way to the boat.  By the time we got to the boat, and groceries unloaded it was dark, so did not look at the dink until the next day.  We found two holes in the dinghy tube - and noticed that they were in alignment, almost like something was poked from one side through to the other side.

Hole on outside through dinghy chaps

Dinghy chaps removed, you can see the hole

And a hole on the other side as well though the chaps

Chaps removed, you can see the hole.

The more we looked, it seemed like the dinghy had been shot, by a powerful BB type gun or something else.   We called the marina and let them know that our dink had been vandalized.

We had patch material, so spent the day working on that, and fixing the port engine coolant drain with the parts picked up in town.  We let some other cruisers know about the dinghy as well, since we were all using the same dock.

Next day, we decided to test the dink repair, by going in for lunch.  Kris had had mofongo when in Puerto Rico back in 2013, and enjoyed it, so wanted to have it again.  Found a close restaurant called La Bakira, and went in for lunch.

Sitting outside at La Bakira

Kris's lunch - Mofongo de Camarones

Lunch was very good, and enough to take a bit back home as well.  Unfortunately the dink still has a slow leak on one side, so will have to try that patch again.

Friday we headed 5 miles east to Bahia de Jobos.  Dean made bread and pizza dough, and Kris went for a nice kayak trip.

Kayaking through the mangroves

Water was surprisingly clear in some areas

Dean's perfect looking bread 

While there, we got an email from the cruisers we had met in Salinas.   They let us know that there was a fellow at the marina walking around with a 22 caliber rifle.  The marina hires him to shoot Caiman for the safety of the marina patrons.  Now we know what happened to our dinghy.  Either he accidently shot it and did not realize while aiming at a Caiman, or realized, but was afraid of repercussions so did not confess to it. Either way, we felt better knowing what had happened - at least we are 90% sure of the cause, and knowing it wasn't a personal attack on us made us feel better.  Still sucks though to have our brand new dinghy shot.

Evidently the non-native Caiman are causing quite a problem in Puetro Rico.

Smaller than crocodile or alligator, but still a pest.

Saturday we moved 15 miles east to Puerto Patilla, as a staging anchorage for the large trip east to Vieques.   This should be the close to the last motor trip against the wind for a while, and we can hopefully start sailing more.