Puerto Rico!

[Kevin's Post] Our day began today at 4:30 AM Phoenix time, and now sixteen hours later I'm laying in bed in Fajardo listening to the tree frogs which are so loud even the blasting air conditioning can't drown them out. Back in Phoenix we spent the last several days packing up the nearly 300 pounds of junk we wanted to bring to the boat. Our bags must have been a TSA nightmare with a wide variety of unusual metal and electronic items scattered among dive gear, books, clothes, and other sundries. I think we have about half a diesel engine in there. Each of our three duffels were carefully weighed and arranged to come in just under the 50 lb limit. Adding to the fun was the 85lb crate containing the new boat table. I've been worrying about how we were going to get this to the boat for months now, turns out the cheapest way was to just check it as baggage and pay the oversize/overweight fees. I had to custom design the crate specifically to come in under the max weight and dimensions allowed by American Airlines. The whole table is encased in spray-in polyurethane foam and sandwiched between two pieces of plywood. At check-in we explained that it was a table. The woman checking us in said she always travels with her table too. Everyone's a comedian. I haven't opened the crate yet, but judging from the outside it appears to be in pretty good shape.

We didn't arrive in San Juan until 8:30PM local time and by the time we got to Fajardo it was nearly 11, so we haven't been to see the boat yet. That will be first on the agenda tomorrow. We are spending a few nights in a hotel until we can get the boat in the water. We were tentatively planning to launch on Saturday, but the forecast is for unusually rainy weather due to the remnants of Hurricane Ida, so that will probably slow down our preparations. Driving to Fajardo, everything seemed pretty dry so we're hoping the forecast is wrong. Tomorrow will be an interesting day, as we discover what kind of condition the boat is in after sitting unused for 18 months. More to come. . .