Mayaguez to Bouqueron, Puerto Rico

We arrived Mayaguez around 12:30 am this morning.  It looks like a very big city and all the lights made arrival difficult … impossible to see the channel markers.  Lucky for us … the GPS guided us in!

So much for trying to do things right.  We have two cruising guides to the Puerto Rican coast.  Both books say that Mayaguez is one of the few places you can actually clear in for customs and all boats (whether American or not) need to clear in.  It says a lot of people blow by Mayaguez and head straight to Bouqueron (about 12 miles south along the western coast) and try to clear in from there … being successful for some but others are forced to go back to Mayaguez to clear.  We opted to do it right in the first place and just clear in at Mayaguez.

Yeah, right!  After a very nice (yet short) sleep, we woke and readied for the adventure of clearing into a new port.  We went over to the place described in the books.  It was a very large terminal (where the ferry from the DR comes in).  There was no dock to pull up to, so we tied along the seawall and made the climb to land.  Hard job!  The complex was deserted.  The emblem on the doors said Customs And Border Patrol so we knew we were in the right spot … but the doors were locked.  We climbed back into the dinghy and checked out the coastline more, thinking maybe there was some other place to clear?

We were unsuccessful.

Shit, now what do we do?  Larry had a very good idea.  We called the Coast Guard on VHF radio, and asked if they could assist.  To make a long story short, after about 20 minutes of info back and forth and several calls from them to Customs, they told us to go to that same “deserted” building.  Yeah, right!!!  Finally, we asked if we could sail to Bouqueron and call to clear in.  They put us on hold for a couple of minutes and then said that would be ideal.

So … here we are in Bouqueron.  It was a short but nice trip south.  Started out with 7-8 knots of breeze and ended up pulling into the harbor with gusts topping 40 knots.  Wow, what a change.  But before we were anchored, the winds were back down to about 15 knots … very temperamental!  We sailed thru a colossal downpour on the 12 mile trip to Bouqueron and it cleaned the boat nicely (we needed it badly) … however, by the time we arrived we were covered with salt spray again and need another rinse!

We have already gone ashore to “clear in”.  There was a bar at the end of the dinghy dock and we immediately started talking to these two old cruisers.  Sounds like Bouqueron is a lot like Luperon where people come to visit and never leave.  The guy we were talking to has been here for MANY years.  They were very nice and asked if they could help us find anything.  We explained our problem and said we needed to find a phone to clear in.  The one guy pulled out his cell and called a # he had from his contact list.  He just happened to have the # for the customs office in San Juan.  He called, made sure we had someone we could speak to and handed Larry the phone.

After the typical US bureaucracy and being on hold several times, Larry finally gave them all our information and we received our “Arrival #”.  We were done.

Of course, we had to buy the guy (and his friend) a beer.  Four beers … $5.00.  So … clearing into this (our) country cost us a total of $2.50 in beer!

Bourqueon seems like a nice little town.  We’re told it gets pretty intense on the weekends and is compared to spring break in a lot of places, with all the locals/tourists from everywhere coming to party.  Right now, we’re undecided how long we will stay.  It would be nice to watch the transformation of this picture perfect little town into party-central but we really want to get to the Virgin Islands too.  The water here is better than in Luperon but still not clear like the tropics should be. 

It’s strange.  In my mind, I think of the journey so far as simply a means to an end … a necessary evil to get us to Paradise.  BUT … on the same note, we don’t want to simply blow by everything until we find that PERFECT spot.  We’ll miss too much along the way.  At some point we just need to slow down and enjoy!  Let’s start that right now!

Larry opened a large bottle of wine and we vegged in the cockpit as we watched the sun set behind some ominous thunder clouds.  For dinner, Larry made Mahi Picata over orzo pasta … OMG … totally awesome!!!  Too good … no leftovers.  Mom … you would have loved this!!!  We turned in early and had a very good night’s sleep.