Ponce, Puerto Rico

The past couple of days we have just been taking it easy. We get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, motor east for a few miles in light winds, and drop the hook before the trade winds kick up from the east. Yesterday we were in a spot nicknamed Gilligan's Island (really called "Cayo Aurora"). In the morning just as we got into the dinghy to ride over to the mangrove island, we saw a ferryload of pasty white tourists arrive with plenty of pool toys. The island is a state park "manned by rangers" (meaning we saw a guy lounging around in his boxer shorts at the ranger station) and it is hugely popular with locals and tourists. There were picnic tables, fire pits, and a picturesque shallow lagoon where people were swimming and snorkeling. We took a snorkel through one of the mangrove streams and didn't see much in the way of aquatic life but it was cool to look at the mangrove roots underwater. We then tried to walk around the island to the beach/reef side but there was no path -- guess most of the appeal of the island is the lagoon and picnic spots.

This morning we arrived in Ponce (PONE-say), Puerto Rico's second largest city named for Juan Ponce de Leon. There's a small anchorage near the Ponce Yacht Club, but the depth there is 30 feet and there were already several boats anchored and many more on fixed moorings. In order to put enough scope down you'd want to put at least 150 feet of chain out and things could get a little too close for comfort if the wind shifts. So we just tucked around the corner near the industrial dock (where the big ships tie up) and found a nice spot where we dropped the hook in 15 feet of water instead. Not much scenery to look at though -- in one direction we have the shipyard and two lovely landfills and in the other lots and lots of urban sprawl. Perhaps there's a reason we are the only ones anchored out here...

Where we are:
Location=Ponce, Puerto Rico
Lat=17 58.681
Lon=66 37.518