PART 2- SAN JUAN AND THE NORTH COSAST
June 17th - Day 1 - San Juan
The flight from Miami to San Juan took off on schedule. It was packed, but I was assigned a window seat and I passed the time looking over the Bahamas trying to make out the shapes of the different islands. I’m pretty sure we flew over Andros, the Exumas, and maybe the Turk’s and Caicos. Eventually, however, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, we had already begun the descent. I noticed the waves had many white caps like bread crumbs on a blueberry yogurt. I would have liked to know how big the waves were, to see how my kayak would compare, but I could not spot any vessel for reference. From high up above, the ocean waves look calm and tranquil.
The arrival at San Juan international airport was chaotic. Before landing I had to fill out a Covid19 status application confirming I had been vaccinated, but the online form was incredibly long filled with superfluous requirements. Why is my age needed after I gave my date of birth, or the flight information, after I gave the flight number? Strangest of all, why my employment status, profession, and employer information is relevant I have no idea. If they had just asked for my political party affiliation, that would probably be far more informative about my COVID status.
The hardest part of the application was uploading a photograph of the vaccination card. Their system would crash for lack of bandwidth, and the whole process had to be restarted. I was successful on the third attempt and received an email with a QR code, but in the end, the entire effort was for nothing. The QR code scanner at the airport was not working, and a huge line of impatient and sweaty people formed at the exit of the baggage terminal where two health officials were checking everyone’s vaccine card and temperature. If it weren’t for the masks, the collective discontent would be evident on everyone’s face. After about an hour I was finally through and on my way.
I picked a hotel close to the beach to minimize the distance I need to portage the kayak. Fortunately, I found just such a place on google earth, a hostel called the Sandy Beach Hotel on Condado beach just one building behind the sand. Adding to my good fortune, behind the hotel was a CVS and a Walgreens pharmacy with all the variety of power bars and canned fish I could ever want for the start of the journey. After my Florida Expedition, I’ve concluded that I am not the type that likes to camp and cook. The cooking stove, gas and utensils take up a lot of room, and cooking is time consuming. Although reasonable people may disagree with me, I find that smoked canned salmon, and tuna in tomato sauce are quite good.
After checking into the hotel I took a walk down to the beach. There were a few breakers on submerged rocks some distance out, and a few waves kicking up some sand when they broke on shore. I wouldn’t normally consider these to be challenging conditions, but compared to what I paddle in Miami, they would be a rough day. I looked to find the best place to launch from. The beach had two sides separated by some rocks. The east side was flatter and the waves gentler, but there were also lots of rocks which I would be keen to avoid, especially on the first day. The west side was quite a bit steeper, with rougher waves, but they seemed to come in sets and in between it was fairly calm; the slope would make it easier to slide into the water with the loaded kayak and the portage would be shorter, and there were no rocks. I decided that would be the launching point.
The Eastern trade wind became very strong around 2:00pm. I asked the front desk at the Sandy Beach Hotel what they thought of it. “Oh, that’s pretty usual. It’s calmer in the morning, and then builds throughout the day before dying down in the evening. You’re the guy who said you would be bringing a kayak, I would recommend you don’t go too far downwind. It will be tough getting back.”
“Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind.”
June 18th - Day 2 - San Juan
Oh, what a busy day today was… At 6:00am I took a morning walk on the beach; the wind was indeed much calmer, but the waves looked about the same. I then called up a cab and headed to the Crowley Warehouse at the port to get my kayak.
“Quieres alcohol?” Said the cab driver.
“No, I don’t drink.” I responded.
“No man! Not for drinking, it’s not even eight yet. It’s to clean your hands. Health department guidelines for COVID…”
I noticed that here in Puerto Rico, people take COVID a lot more seriously than in Florida. Every business requires a mask, and you will not be allowed inside without one. In the restaurants people keep their masks on until the food arrives, and even when walking in the street most people I see are masked. “Everyone here is getting vaccinated as soon as they can schedule an appointment. We don’t get why some of you guys in the states make such a fuss about it. When life is too easy, you worry about bull-shit.”
The Crowley warehouse in San Juan looks just like the warehouse in Miami. Same layout, same forklifts driving around like it’s rush hour, Even the forklift driver who went to fetch my kayak looked like the twin brother of the driver in Miami.
“What’s that thing?” He asked.
“A kayak. I’m going to paddle around Puerto Rico.”
“Oh man… really? There are sharks out there, you know…”
When he drove the forklift back with my kayak I felt relieved. The bags and the palette looked just like when I last saw them, the plastic wrapping looked crisp and unscarred. If someone had asked me to take a bow of gratitude to Crowley Marine I would have done so; $276 to ship my kayak across the Caribbean and have it delivered with no issues felt like a bargain, even with the Jones Act. All the cab rides I’ll be taking around San Juan for the next three days will cost more than that.
The drive back from the warehouse to the hotel went smoothly. I was worried I would need two trips, but everything fit inside just one van, though the driver probably had no rear vision whatsoever, and I had my knees pressed against my chest.
Getting the sections kayak in through the hotel lobby was a tight squeeze. To say the corridors were four feet wide would be generous; I had to hold the sections vertically in front of me and walk sideways along the narrow aisles. The thorniest portion were two 90-degree bends before the patio where I had to turn in place like a rumba to pass through. The seat section was the toughest; I had to hold it vertically as well, but one handed. It was a miracle I did not scrape the boat against the walls. I’ll need to make this back and forth journey at least three more times.
After getting the kayak to its temporary home, the next task to solve was what to do with the bags. They are huge, and the hotel front desk told me they cannot hold it while I’m gone. I decided to call my paddler friend here in Puerto Rico and he offered to hold on to them, however, he lives in a town about an hour and a half drive away, and the cab fare estimate to get there was just under $200, one way. It’s somewhat ironic that the last 25 miles were costing only a little more than the 2,500 miles the kayak traveled all the way from Florida. The last mile is always the most expensive mile. I decided to look for another option. As fate would have it, I found a storage place just two miles from the hotel. They had one 5x10ft space available for $280 for a month, more than good enough, I thought. “We only have two units of that size left, if you want it, then come by today.” I took a cab there straight away, lest I get there only to find out that my fortunes had changed.
By the time the afternoon came around, I hoped to get some rolling practice with the kayak in the waves. However, just like I was warned, the East wind had picked up considerably late in the day. I looked at the beach and decided to wait until morning. That’s a lesson to remember while I’m here; start early, finish early.
I decided instead to take a walk and scout this section of coast line to see what kind of conditions to expect. The waves got bigger the farther west I went, the beach narrowed, and the sand strip gave way to a stretch of cliffs before ending at a small bay straddled by a bridge. A few waves were breaking offshore in some underwater mount that was popular with surfers who were catching some barrels at that spot, but I made a mental note to keep an eye for the foam pile and steer far away from it. Underwater rocks are the thing I fear the most. One bad bang, and I’ll be patching the fiberglass hull.
June 19th - Day 3 - Dress Rehearsal Day
I got up at 5am to put the boat on the water with all the gear and get some rolling practice. The wind was much calmer which gave me a good feeling. I set up the kayak sections on the street and wheeled the boat up to the sand with my dolly. The beach was empty, except for two local hobos asleep on top two stacks of hotel beach chairs. I set the kayak down on the sloped side of the beach and made three trips back to the hotel to grab all my gear. I packed everything into the hatches, put on my helmet, sat in the boat, and waited for a gap in the waves. When the gap appeared, I gave two strong pushes and the boat slid down the fine wet sand with ease and I started paddling fast past the breaker zone.
The water was choppy, but paddling didn’t feel strenuous. I practiced a few rolls with both my euro blade, and the wing paddle. To my great relief, the rolls felt natural, and I wasn’t getting the issue where the added weight makes starting the roll difficult. I rolled both on my good side and my offside, and both with the swell, and against the swell. That gave me a strong boost of confidence that if something bad happens, I won’t need to do a wet exit and reentry, probably.
I then practiced a few launches and landings through the surf. For the landings I got right up to the breakers just 15 feet from the sand, there I did four strong backstrokes to let the wave behind me pass underneath and break just up ahead for a soft landing. When the bow touched the sand I threw the paddle up the beach, got out quickly, and pulled the kayak up before the next wave. I stuck the landing every time and unashamedly would give myself an A grade on all my landings. Admittedly, however, the waves were barely over 4 feet. I’ve seen a video on YouTube where a 10-foot barrel breaks right on the sand; in those conditions, if you get the timing right, the landing would not be much different, but get it wrong, and the wave will smack your face on the sand and crush the boat on top of you.
My only complaint from today’s practice is that the Lifeproof box for the new iPhone is really hard to use with wet gloves. Something must have changed with the screen material, because it wasn’t like that on the Florida journey. That will make it hard to take pictures and check the GPS out on the water.
By around 10 am the wind started to pick up and I felt I’d had enough practice and built up enough confidence. No need to push things too hard on the first day.
I spent the rest of the day sightseeing in San Juan. The city feels a lot like Miami. Everyone speaks Spanish, all the cab drivers play salsa on the radio, and there is near continuous rush hour traffic. I noticed one peculiar thing on the city map, almost all the place and street names are Spanish, but there’s a few American oddities that catch the eye like Ashcroft Avenue, Roosevelt Road, Calle Lincoln, and Garfield Cut. Subtle reminders of where the latest Puerto Rico patrons come from.
From my hotel on Condado beach, I walked about 40-minutes to the old city. This part of San Juan is a contrast to the ugly modern box buildings everywhere else. Here I walked through a labyrinth of narrow stone cobbled streets under the shade of colorful two-story buildings with balconies decorated with hanging flower baskets and vines. Occasionally the street I was in would outflow into a plaza with a small fountain, a view of San Juan bay, or a tree lined square. It’s a wonderful place to lose yourself in and pretend for a moment to be transported back in time. Or it would be, if it were not for that; nearly every street in the old city is jam packed with cars bumper to bumper and there is hardly enough room for a pedestrian. All this traffic takes a toll on the place; the engine noise is constant, and many cobblestones are sagging from a load they were never designed to handle. The municipality really needs to ban all cars except for service vehicles, otherwise
Defending the old city and the entrance to San Juan bay like a closed fist is a colossal stone fort called El Morro. The walls of the fort along the Atlantic Ocean are as thick as I am tall, and it would have taken a lot of cannon balls to knock a hole through them. Unfortunately for El Morro, modern warfare has made walls obsolete. Although the Spaniards repelled the English, the French, and the Dutch, through the ages, they were no match for the Americans with their battleships and Artillery. During the Spanish American War, the US Navy bombarded El morro and pulverized a good chunk of the sea wall including the old lighthouse. The Spaniards surrendered soon after. The lighthouse and the main watch tower were rebuilt, but it’s very obvious they have a modern look to them. Inside the fort is a labyrinth of corridors, narrow passages, and some very steep inclines which I cannot imagine how many slaves would have been to drag a brass cannon up to the turrets.
After some walking around old San Juan I came across a restaurant that said it served authentic Puerto Rican food. Not knowing what Puerto Rican food is, I went with the waiter’s suggestion to try something called Mofongo, which he said was like mashed potatoes, only a little thicker as made from plantains and yucca. “Puerto Ricans love it from the time they are children,” he said. I ordered the churrasco variety, but what came was my least favorite thing to eat; green peppers and goopy onions, all of which I had to diligently scrape off. Unfortunately, the meat picked up so much of the pungent pepper taste that it was not edible, and the poor mofongo which was underneath it all was so soaked in the sauces that it had the consistency of wet bread for catching fish. I don’t think I will be ordering Mofongo again.
June 20th - Day 4 - Launch Day!
It was the perfect start for the journey; the wind was mild, the ocean was calm, and the sky was slightly overcast, however, I knew that these conditions would not last for long and it was essential to get going. Yesterday’s practice setting up the kayak saved me a lot of time knowing what I wanted in each hatch and in what order. I was ready to push off by 6:00am. Unfortunately, one thing went amiss. I seem to have lost a pair of paddling gloves. I could have sworn I remember putting them inside the cockpit, but when I went to push off, they were not there. There was nobody else around, not even yesterday’s beach hobos so unless someone came around right when I went back to the hotel to fetch the gear, I cannot imagine how they disappeared. Thank goodness I had two pairs with me, but now these will have to last the whole journey. I don’t know how some paddlers manage without gloves. Once I did a 5-day trip through the Everglades without gloves, and my calluses got so bad I could barely open my hands after grabbing the paddle.
I paddled out until I was beyond the breakers and then headed west with the breeze and the current. Compared to the bustle of the city, the ocean is so much quieter. Today there were no engine noises, no honking cars, no rumbling trucks. The only sound was my paddle striking the water, and when I paused for a break, no sound at all.
I reached El Morro and the mouth of San Juan Bay much more quickly than when I walked the same distance. From the water the fortress blends with the exposed granite cliff and it becomes a half natural, half man-made mountain. On the grass plain up on top of the mountain I saw a few people flying kites. They were just about noticeable, but I doubt they could ever see me unless they knew where to look, and even then the waves would have hidden me in the folds from time to time. At the entrance to t bay San Juan bay I had to take a forced 10 minute break to let a Norwegian Cruise Liner cross in front of me. I had been seeing it out in the ocean for a while heading towards the port and was wondering what to do. At sea it’s sometimes difficult to tell distances to a ship on the horizon or how fast it may be moving. Is it far enough away for me to cross in front of it, or do I have to wait? If I wait, is this the best spot to wait, or can I paddle a little further? Is the thing even moving? Maybe I am waiting for nothing. Every decision feels wrong. I decided to paddle directly towards the cruise liner and that way I would be certain to cross behind it.
I had planned to paddle just 15 miles to ease myself into the journey, however, I reached the bay I planned to camp by 10:00 am, which felt too early to stop. I checked the GPS for where I had marked the next possible landing site, and it was only three and a half more miles. I decided to keep going, but soon regretted. The wind picked up, bands of rain storms started coming down hard, and like the staff at the hotel warned me, it was impossible to make it back once I was downwind of my destination.
On the map the next campsite looked ideal. The bay was an arc with a decent sand strip and faced the northwest which should have meant it was protected from the swells. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite like that when I arrived. The sea floor here must have been sloped for the waves to refract around the East headland and point straight down the middle of the arc. The water must have been deep because the rollers weren’t breaking, and I was carried on a green wave far down into the bay.
The beach was nothing like the aerial images on Google Earth. The sand strip was more like an escarpment with a very steep grade, and the green rollers were breaking rather violently and suddenly.
My landing was not as pretty as yesterday. I came in on the back of a wave and threw the paddle as far as I could up the embankment, but when I got off the boat I slipped and fell. The beach was so steep that even though I was just a few feet from the sand, I was in waist deep water. This small delay was all it took for the next wave to catch up. As I scrambled up the soft sand of the embankment against the back-rushing water the next wave crashed over the open cockpit, and it was filled with water and sand in less than a second. Thankfully I was not between the kayak and the beach, and the wave carried it about a third of the way up the embankment and I held it in place so it would not come back down. I poured the water and most of the sand out, but the leftovers will be there bothering me until I get a chance to thoroughly hose everything out. At least I survived the first day.
June 21st - Day 5
I don’t think I can remember the last time I camped somewhere so hot and humid as last night. My skin felt like it was covered with sticky honey. I don’t think subsequent camping nights will be much better. I will try rolling up the rainfly to allow the air to circulate. The only issue with doing that is if someone walks by with a flashlight at night; they’ll get a show, “Naked dirty man in a cage.”
Launching this morning was tough. The rollers were still breaking right on the sand, and the pullback zone of the water was at least 10 feet. These launch conditions are always tough to do alone. On a perfect launch the kayak will stay perpendicular to the wave when it rushes up the beach, and then a push or two will be enough to slide all the way down with the returning water.
In reality what happens is that the wave always comes in on a slight angle, the kayak gets spun out of place and is left high and dry. If the heading doesn’t get corrected immediately, the next wave will make it worse. That’s what happened to me; the wave rushed up the beach, my kayak spun sideways, and I had to get out and start over. Fortunately, I just about managed on the second attempt.
I paddled out of the bay where I was camped, through a few breakers, and out into the open sea where I put up the sail and settled into the rhythm of matching my paddled strokes with the swells. The sea here is filled with creatures. I saw a school of flying fish make a mad dash in to escape a flock of frigates chasing them from above. The fish are quite the acrobats with four wings; they fly very close to the water gaining lift from the air mass pushed up by the swell; they can even change direction in mid glide by scraping their tail fins on the water like rudders. If the frigate comes too close the whole school quickly drops back in the water for safety, though once in a while some bigger fish are there waiting for them, so the unlucky who dodge danger from above meet their end soon after down below.
There are a lot of sea turtles in these waters. I usually spot them when they come to the surface and poking their head out to breathe. I think that unlike the flying fish, they must not have any aerial predators as they are almost always oblivious to me seeking up on them during their surface rest. Only when I have drifted almost on top of them do they become aware of the unwelcome guest, and immediately dive for safety.
After 10:00am the swells got really big. Out in the open ocean, it so happens sometimes that one swell catches up with the one in front of it, their strengths build on each other, and suddenly the boat drops inside a huge chasm, or gets thrust up so high that I am that for a moment I can see able to see headlands previously hidden below the horizon.
For a long time today there was a very tall spire out in the distance, and I struggled to understand what it was as it was too slender to be a lighthouse, and could not be a building as there were no large towns in this coast section. It was so tall that for a while the land which it stood on was beneath the horizon and it seemed to rise from the water. When I got closer I saw that it was a bronze sculpture of a caravel anchored to a thick pedestal, and the tall spire was the ship mast which had three enormous metal sails embossed with the hollowed carving of the cross. In front of the ship was the statue of a sailor about half as big as the ship, grasping a steering wheel.
“Wow, what a weird countryside middle of nowhere place to build a gigantic monstrosity. Looks like something made by the North Koreans,” I thought. Later I googled, “Giant Puerto Rico Statue,” and the Wikipedia entry for the monument came right up. It is, it seems, a dedication to Christopher Columbus’ first voyage, and the discovery of the New Word. Now that I think about it, it makes sense for a statue of Columbus to be in Puerto Rico, as he did pass by these shores on his first voyage; even so, the statue has had a contentious history.
It was designed and built by a wealthy Russian sculptor, who for some reason was infatuated with Columbus, and wanted to create a monument to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Americas but forgot that unless you’re keeping a 360-foot statue that weighs over one million pounds in your own backyard, someone has to want it in theirs.
Like Columbus, the statue did some traveling around the Americas from port to port and was almost always promptly sent packing by the locals who were fast to conclude the thing was more trouble than it's worth. First to reject it was New York City, who realized the irony of throwing shade on the Statue of Liberty with a bigger statue of a man indirectly responsible for depriving the liberty from millions of Native Americans would not sit well. The statue then went to South Florida where plans were made to erect it at the entrance to the Port of Miami, until local historians pointed out that the steering wheel Columbus was clutching in his hand wasn’t invented until some 250 years after his first voyage. From there, the statue was passed around like an unwanted hot potato to Fort Lauderdale, Columbus Ohio, St. Petersburg Florida, Baltimore, and others, until someone convinced the Arecibo City Council the monument would be a great way to promote tourism and create local jobs. They just needed to pay $17 million dollars to acquire it and find a suitable plot of land to put it.
After watching the monument grow in my field of view for three hours I concluded it makes for a good marker for someone lost in the ocean. But it doesn’t seem to have much other use. My guide book doesn’t even mention it and I have a feeling that someone in the future is going to melt it for copper.
I camped a few beaches down from the statue on the bay west of Arecibo harbor. The harbor faces due west and was sheltered from the wind which made for an easy landing. There’s a small stream that separates the beach where I camped from the harbor where there is a parking lot with popular restaurants. One restaurant even had a garden hose which made for a fantastic freshwater shower to make me feel clean. There is no way I could see to hop across to my side of the beach except by boat, so I don’t think anyone can come around to bother me at night.
June 22nd - Day 6
The wind really picked up early today. This northwest corner of Puerto Rico juts out slightly north from the rest of the island, and so the coastline is more exposed to the trade wind. For some reason, however, the waves were nowhere near as large as yesterday, but the sea felt much more confused, and I spent a lot of effort trying to hold my heading. There wasn’t any place to land for long stretches and I resigned to having to pee in the kayak. This is always a tough thing to do when the water is calm, let alone when the sea is tossing you like a washing machine. You try to relax but you can’t help but worry about the next wave washing over the open cockpit, so it takes much longer than usual to get business done, which increases the risk, which increases the worry, which increases the time and so on.
By midday I decided to look for a place to land for the day, but I wasn’t seeing any good places. Everything seemed to be either rocky, or exposed, or very steep. I texted my paddler friend from Puerto Rico to see if he had any local knowledge. “Try Jobos Beach. There’s a big headland rock and it’s usually calm behind it, but just be aware that it’s a party beach, pitch your tent after dark so no one bothers you.”
I checked the GPS, Jobos beach was only a few miles further. From the aerial image it seemed like the beach faced due north, however, there was a large rocky headland on the eastern shore where the beach carved a pleasant and sheltered armpit. As I came in to land I rode a few rollers, while also trying to dodge a few surfers who seemed to come from nowhere, but once I made it into the arm pit the water was calm as a lake.
Just as I was warned, the place was packed, the salsa and merengue boom boxes were competing with each other, and everyone seemed to have a beer can on hand. “Hey, we have cold Medalla. You want one?, Oh where d’you come from in that thing?” Someone on the beach said.
“Oh thanks, but right now I really can’t drink alcohol, or I’ll get more tippy than the boat. Haven’t eaten anything. I started from Arecibo this morning…”
“Oh, you came far! Did you catch any fish? Well, we also have Mountain Dew too, but it’s not cold. Let us know.”
The headland that protects the eastern flank of Jobos beach has eroded into a field of sharp and jagged stumps. I saw two people climbing over the rocks near the breaker zone with bare feet and wondered how long it would be before one of them stubbed a toe. There are two rocky mounts separated by a valley of sharp rock stacks. On the descent to the valley there’s a sign telling not to go further due to cascading water. It’s not an empty warning; when a big wave hits the headland mounts, two waterfalls pour into the valley with foaming thunder. In rough weather I think the waterfall never stops cascading. A little further from the mounts the sea has carved two blow holes. One is very narrow, and the waves squeeze the air pocket into a plume of whistling white spray. The other blowhole is a bit wider and has formed an arch which is a popular Instagram photo. The person stands on top of the natural bridge with the frothing water below. I thought of walking over the arch, but after I saw an obese lady have the same idea I had second thoughts about it.
There was a lot of time to pass today as conditions got progressively tougher with the afternoon. My kayak is a big conversation starter as people want to know what I am up to. I’ve come to conclude, however, that this is a hindrance because it leads me to talk about the same things repeatedly. “Yes I am going around Puerto Rico. No, I’m not crazy. Yes I thought about the sharks. No, I’m not fishing. No, my wife isn’t unhappy with me doing this for so long, because I don’t have a wife, or a girlfriend.” I have instead started to make the effort and steer the conversations to be more about them than me.
One guy was here for his retirement party. That seemed a strange thing, because the man, although older than me, didn’t look near retirement age. “I’m a border patrol agent on the San Diego Sector, and I just completed my 25 years this year, so I am out. No more chasing after Mexicans. I want to enjoy life from now on.” Another person said he was a retired water treatment plant operator from Pittsburg, “I would have kept working there for another 5 to 10 years, the pay was good, but I was starting to get forgetful of things, so I thought it was better to quit while I was still doing the job right…” And then there was a local from San Juan who when I told him this was my first time in Puerto Rico, he said to me, “Don’t believe the headlines you hear on TV about Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a lot nicer, safer and more beautiful than the media makes it out to be.” I asked him about a recent story on the news of a famous Puerto Rican Boxer who killed his pregnant girlfriend and dumped her body into a lagoon, because he’d thought the baby was going to be a hindrance to his boxing career. He’d bound her feet with wire and a concrete block before throwing her off a bridge. “Yes, unfortunately that story was true, but excluding that, Puerto Rico is very nice and safe, just be careful…”
June 23rd - Day 7
Last night I tried to sleep with only half the rainfly on to keep the air a bit cooler. That worked out well, until around 3:00am when I woke up with rain pouring in.
I did not cover much distance today. I paddled around the northwest shoulder of the island which has many dramatic cliffs tumbling into the water. The wind was very mild in the morning; I paddled past inviting beaches secluded in small pockets amidst the vegetation that looked like they would be fairly easy landings, though I don’t know if I would say the same thing six hours later after the wind picked up.
I stopped for about two hours at a beach popular with locals called “Crash Boat Landing” The beach has an abandoned pier that is a magnet to all kinds of colorful fish that shoal around the column remains. Some of them are curious and have no fear of approaching the divers looking for small bread crumbs. The water was very clear, and I decided to use the snorkeling mask and flippers I have been carrying to beat my legs which haven’t been getting much exercise.
Rimming the beach parking lot were several food trucks selling chicken, pork and fish kebabs. Unfortunately, the Puerto Rican street food lacks a lot to be desired. I tried the chicken kebab, but it had more barbecue sauce than chicken. The cheese burger I ordered was incinerated. But by far the worst thing I ate was a pepperoni pizza. I don’t know how the pizza was baked, but it was soggy like a wet t-shirt and reeked like a grease catcher. I took a one bite and tossed it in the trash, even the fish wouldn’t eat it.
I carried on, now paddling due south to the town of Aguadilla which sits on a cliff foot surrounded by blooming orange Poinciana trees. Just before the town there is an enormous peer with a metal frame high above the water. I was told this used to be the loading station for a sugar mill. The ship would approach the pier and be loaded with a conveyor belt to the brim with raw black sugar before sailing off to the United States where the sugar was refined and sold back to Puerto Rico. It seems however, the peer has not been used in many years, and I was worried about passing underneath it as it looked rusty and ready to collapse into the sea at any moment.
There were no good places to land and walk around the waterfront in Aguadilla. The town didn’t look very inviting; all the buildings I could see from the water were the typical shanties built from a cluster of bricks of varying quality. Just south of the town where the coast begins to bend west to the Rincon peninsula there was a park where I stopped and spent the afternoon. The beach where I planned to camp had no shade, and the sun would have baked my uncovered scalp.
I noticed my phone had several missed calls. One was from the washing machine handyman who finally got around to showing up to repair the broken washer. I had told the tenant to in the meantime use a laundry delivery service and that I would pay for however often she needed it. Unfortunately, the message said he could fix the machine, but he still wanted to be paid. I called him up and paid him; over the years, I have learned that there are things that are not worth arguing about. I’ll buy a new washer when I get back.
The other calls were from family in Brazil, friends on Facebook whom I have not had contact with in many years, and work acquaintances. All of them wanted to know if I was ok, which seemed strange to me until I caught up with the news. An entire condominium building in Miami collapsed. Apparently, it came down like a controlled demolition explosion and there are hundreds of people feared missing or dead. The rubble pile reminded me of the Twin Towers in New York. If it is anything like it, very few people, perhaps no one will have survived.
I pitched the tent later after the sun had set over the horizon and the heat had partially abated. When I was ready to call in for the day I realized that I had misjudged the location of the high tide mark on the sand. A wave washed right through the mark and came within just three feet of the tent. I looked up the tide table on my phone and saw that the official high tide time would be in 25 minutes. Everything was unpacked, the wind had picked up and was kicking up a lot of sand. It would be extremely burdensome and messy to move further up the beach, especially in the dark. I decided to risk it and leave things as is.
