2026-03-08 Trip to San Juan, lumpy seas, and manatees

Sunday and Monday were boat days.  Kris did some more work on wood refinishing, and on Monday took an old temperature sender out of the port engine in prep for our shopping trip coming up.

Tuesday we picked a car up at the Marina at 9:00, and then headed north to Old San Juan.  Found parking after a bit of drive around in Old San Juan, and then enjoyed a few hours of walking the town, having a nice lunch out, looking at sites, and touring Castillo San Cristobal.  The Castillo is considered the largest fortress built in the Americas.  It has 3 levels and numerous tunnels.

Here are a few photos of the day.

Some street were jammed packed with cars and tourists, and others were quite peaceful

Inside Cathedral Basilica Menor de San Juan Bautista

A house burned down, and the land donated to make a small park

Many roads have these blue cobblestones

San Juan harbor

Castillo San Felipe del Morro

Capilla del Cementerio Santa María

One of the streets of Old San Juan

Floor tiles in the Castillo

Very thick walls and shuttered windows in the Castillo

View from upper level of Castillo San Cristobal

Tunnel in the Castillo

Just wandering around - one of the many streets

On our way back south we stopped in Caguas, at the Home Depot, and got some items, and next door to the Home Depot was a Cold Stone Creamery.   Haven’t had one of their ice creams in many years, so of course had to have some.  It was quite yummy.

Yummy Ice Cream

Finished the day at Advance Auto Parts, picking up a spare diesel jug - which we have never had, and 6 gallons of Rotella oil for the engine and sail drives.

Long day, but enjoyable.

Wednesday we headed back into town, and picked up our Amazon packages, then to another Home Depot, Walmart and grocery store.   The little rental car was packed.   Then we took two trips with the dinghy to the boat to unload it all.   Back on the boat it took a while to put everything away, and some relaxation was in order.

Thursday Dean started to make bread and pizza dough, and realized we had very little sugar.  So it was back to town, this time walking to the close by store to buy some sugar.   Stopped at Wendy's for lunch, and surprise, the tree now decorated for Easter.

They are really getting a lot of use out of this tree.

The weather has not been conducive to heading east at all, with strong east winds and short period steep waves for the last few days.  Looking at the weather, it was going to be another week at least before the waves and wind abated, so we decided to tough it out for one long night and motor east in unpleasant conditions.    And they were unpleasant.   We left at midnight giving the wind a chance to die down, and the first 3 hours were OK, with lighter winds around 10 knots.  We were able to motor at about 4 knots, which made the speed just right for riding up and down the swells, without crashing into them.  Then it got worse.  The seas became more confused and the seas steeper, so then we were at about 2.5 knots to keep the motion bearable, and minimize wave crashing and pounding on the boat.   We made it into Roosevelt Roads anchorage on the east coast of Puerto Rico on Friday around 2:00.  44 miles in 13.5 hours.  That's an average of 3.26 knots.   Not our best night ever.

Had one storm with 35 knots winds and dumping rain

After we got in, cleaned the salt off the deck and tidied up, we had an early pizza dinner, and went to bed early.

Saturday Kris got busy and decided to clean the over and stove top with some oven cleaner.  Also started laundry.   Heard a funny noise from the stern of the boat, and she went out to look, and thought a rubber fender was bouncing against the boat, then did a double take - that was not a fender.  

A large manatee was hanging onto the boat.

We think that it was eating the slime off the bottom of the boat.  We watched and enjoyed and talked to it for about the 15 minutes it continued to "graze" off the hull.

Enjoy the photos

At first, we were a bit nervous about damage to the boat, but since he was just resting mostly one flipper to hold position, no damage done.   Didn't seem bothered by us at all being close and talking and taking photos.  Quite a unique experience.

Later in the afternoon a local sailing club headed out for racing, and lessons on small Thistle sailboats.  Fun to watch.

Most the sailors were kids - maybe 12 to 15 years old.

The larger boats headed further out for racing, but the kids stayed closer to the anchorage area where the waves were milder.

We will stay here a few more days waiting on better weather to head east to Culebra.  Or we could run out of patience and do another lumpy night to get there as it is only 24 miles.   We will see.