Dakity Bay, Culebra, Puerto Rico

After spending a couple of hours on shore this morning to finish our internet work, check our banking (make sure we got May’s rent … thank you Kyle and Robin), we pulled anchor and motored the mile or so out to the entrance of Ensenda Honda.  There were a bunch of boats moored here but luckily, there was one mooring ball left for us.  We’ve gotten very good at picking up mooring balls.  Before this trip, I think maybe I’d done it once or twice in my life.  We’ve gotten VERY good!

We were just getting settled when the captain of the trimaran (a sailboat with 3 hulls that sat on the mooring next to us) yelled over to us.  He said that the mooring we took was in disrepair.  They were in the process of installing a new mooring here and although the new ground tackle was in place, the mooring ball was still attached to the old one.  The old one was bent over and almost loose from the seafloor.  Larry snorkeled it to check.  I will upload a picture of his handy work.  He took a line and ran it through the new ground tackle.  He then ran it through the old line and attached the two together.  If the old one fails, we will be attached to the new one!  He did this all while holding his breath!  He has gotten so much better at free diving in the short time we’ve been out here.

I’m sure this will hold nicely but it doesn’t take much for me to worry.  I had a rough sleep and continually checked our position to make sure the moorings hadn’t pulled out and we were simply adrift.

We had gotten to this area quite early in the day (before noon even).  So, we had a lot of time to relax and enjoy.  Larry took the dinghy over to the reef area and snorkeled.  I just wanted to “veg”.  I had my float tied behind the boat and just relaxed in the wonderful waters.  It’s still slightly cool (okay, maybe not for anyone except a whimp like me) but still warm enough that I could relax for a nice long time just floating in the nice, clear waters.  Once I was pruned nicely, I opted to lounge in the hanging chair that we’d attached between the mast and foresail.  This was ideal laziness … just swinging gently in the breeze.  Awesome!

Larry is trying desperately to find me a lobster.  Unfortunately, neither of us have ever caught one in the wild.  Larry has his little “lobster tickler” … to coax them out of their holes, and the gloves, etc to catch one … but we really haven’t seen many.  I think we’ve only seen two in total and both of them retreated into a coral maze of holes before Larry got the chance to entice them from their homes.  We’ve seen lots of baby lobsters but it is illegal to take those.  They gotta grow up!  Oh well … someday, it will be an amazing treat (I know he will succeed) and until then, mahi, burgers, dogs and steak are working out just nicely.