In Boqueron we saw our first green flash -- the moment (only in the tropics) when the setting sun, just before the last of it disappears, turns a bright emerald green. We collected forwarded mail and sent off birthday presents, and we found a bar with good Wi-Fi internet access. Our cellphone also worked, and with no roaming charges, so we were again in contact with the world. Perhaps a mixed blessing, but we were very happy to be in touch with family members again.

Of course we found a bar to use as a base. Galloway's was handy for internet access -- almost deserted in mid-afternoon -- but our real home turned out to be the tiny Sunrise Sunset, presided over by the delightful Lizette, a refugee from teaching fuel injection and other mechanical subjects in San Juan. She gave us local advice, we used her bar as a shipping address for UPS etc., and whenever we wanted to be unencumbered we stashed our computers or other baggage there. She also served ice-cold beer (Medalla, the local product), checking each can to be sure it was not really frozen.

We met other helpful people as well: Terry, the Irish ex-Royal Marine who sailed in and stayed on as a factotum at Galloway's, and Stan, who had spent much of his life in boats, but had moved ashore in Boqueron. Stan lent us what he called "the peoples' truck," so we could go to the big grocery stores in Mayaguez.

We also got a little work done on the boat between emails and phone calls. One voice-mail I found on regaining phone service was from my Port Supply rep., whom I had told that I wanted the first AIS Class B unit they could ship. Every large vessel has an AIS (Automatic Identification System) unit aboard that

We liked our life in Boqueron, but for a change we decided to take an expedition to La Parguera, a resort town a few miles east. Early one Friday morning we weighed anchor (it took us quite a while to get the mud off the chain) and headed south for Cabo Rojo, the headland at the southwest corner of Puerto Rico.

There is another series of reefs around the harbor itself, but fortunately the passage through these is buoyed. Inside these reefs is a collection of mangrove islets and the Oceanographic

We had expected to find some of the same "off-season" atmosphere in La Parguera that we found in Boqueron, but in that we were disappointed. It is a pretty town, in a nice situation, but every second house is a guest house, and the crowd they are geared to is much younger.

Back in Boqueron, we went on one more shopping trip, watched the St. Patrick's Day parade, had a fish dinner at an excellent little restaurant where our fish was brought out and displayed for us before being cooked, and on the morning of the 18th we weighed anchor and again headed east, this time past La Parguera to Guanica, a major industrial port in the days when Puerto Rico had huge sugarcane plantations. Few yachts call there, but the harbor is very protected and we thought it would be interesting.

The waters where we anchored, surrounded by mangrove trees, are protected, and even before we anchored we were being watched by a patrol boat from the DNR. The skipper advised us about good anchoring spots and then came alongside to chat. No sooner had he left than the local FURA patrol boat came alongside. FURA stands somehow for Joint Police Anti-Narcotics Rapid Reaction Force, and our communication was hindered by our lack of Spanish and their almost complete lack of English, but we managed to show them our documentation was all in order and they left satisfied and all smiles.

This trip set the pattern for our jumps along the south coast of Puerto Rico. We would set off early, pretty much at first light, and arrive at our destination some time between 9:00 and 10:00, before the trade winds picked up. In the afternoons we did chores, read, swam, or simply napped.

This morning, instead, after all the officials had left, we went ashore and walked around Ensenada for a couple of hours, taking pictures, admiring the parakeets in a pet store, and generally enjoying the atmosphere.

Fishing boats, small outboards, came and went, and later in the afternoon groups of men came to fish from the old seawall of the sugar mill and from some of the private wharves that ringed the small bay. No doubt the food was welcome, but the fishing seemed to be also a social occasion, a chance to unwind after work and rehash the day with friends.

The harbor at Ponce is large and quite protected, and the problem it presents is not where to anchor, but how and where to get ashore once one has anchored. The cruising guides suggest anchoring off the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club, and we did this, but found that just to land our dinghy cost us $20/day! This fee also entitled us to use their "facilities" (but we had no need or desire to do that) and it could not be evaded, because the entrance to the club grounds has a full-time gatekeeper who checks the cards of anyone entering. One way and another, I have been in some pretty fancy yacht clubs and have never seen that degree of security, totally at odds with our reception anywhere else in Puerto Rico.

Ponce was founded by the Spanish in 1692, but there are no buildings remaining from that era. The central square is restored early-/mid-19th-century and very pleasant with fountains and lots of benches under trees to give shade.

I had thought of trying to find some lead pigs for ballast from a scrap metal dealer, but the combination of the cost ($20/day) and the lack of any reliable sources of information made us give that plan up.

The City Hall, filling most of one side of the square, is remarkable. The facade is not too special, but the main door opens on a series of courtyards that are surrounded by the doors of quite mundane offices: Inspections, Water and Sewers, City Engineer, etc. In many cities, these would be relegated to back rooms, but not here.

The courtyard walls are decorated with Carnival masks and paintings of carnival scenes, and the city hall is altogether an attractive place to go to work -- or to apply for some kind of permit.

We thought we would have to take a taxi back to the yacht club, but then we thought about buses, and it turns out that there are no buses in our sense, with scheduled routes and so forth, but there are "carros publicos," as there apparently are in most Latin American towns. These are vans that run more-or-less regular routes, but not on any particular schedule. We succeeded in finding the terminal they run from, but had no idea how to go about finding the particular van we wanted.

We found what looked like an office and asked there, but the young lady manning it had very little English. We did manage, however, to make it clear what we needed to know, whereupon she made a phone call. Shortly a woman police officer (we think a friend of the office lady) appeared and escorted us down ramps to a small cluster of vans, one of which she induced to go to "La Guancha" for us, even though it was a little beyond his regular route, for a total charge of $6.00. We think it pays to have the police negotiate for you if you are innocents like us. I do not think we would have been taken advantage of, however; we have never met anyone in Puerto Rico who was unfriendly to us.

Caja de Muertos is a park, presided over by rangers. There is no development on it except the rangers' houses, and here we found clear water with a sand bottom such as we had not seen since the Bahamas (most of the south coast of Puerto Rico is mangrove-lined and mud bottom). We swam and ran the water maker, which we had not cared to run in the murky Ponce water.