It was a week of planning boat projects, gathering information and a few tourist days. We arrived in Ponce, PR early in the week and settled in nicely. We met a family who had owned and restored a boat identical to Gone Galt so we have been picking their brains on how they completed the restoration and they were kind enough to even share pictures of their restoration. I have now added a million more things to our future to do list! Ponce is the second largest city in Puerto Rico after the capital of San Juan so it has a lot of history. We explored the downtown area which has a beautiful town center with old architecture and unique buildings. There is an old firehouse which houses a small museum on the history of firefighting in Puerto Rico and another museum that covers the other history of the island. Columbus claims the fame for “finding” this island as well even though the Indian cultures were here long before he arrived. The rest of the history focused on the manufacturing of sugar cane and rum, the influx of slave labor, the rise and fall of many governments and then Puerto Rico becoming a territory of the United States. After the museums, we went to visit the home of the family that started the Don Q rum label. It is called the Castillo Serrales and was situated on top of the highest hill in Ponce with amazing views of the city, ocean and surrounding mountains. Since we left the States last year, we have been a bit spoiled by what we call “Covid pluses”. Due to the Stupid, we have been able to walk into most tourist attractions and be the only visitors for the week. So, we were surprised when we arrived at the Castillo Serrales to find that all of the tours were booked for the day. While we were disappointed not to be able to go through the house, we were excited that so many tourists were in the area! I also noticed that the clearance aisle at Walmart was overrun with masks upon masks upon masks on the shelves so I am hopeful that we are coming to a turning point with the Stupid. We were allowed to walk through the Castillo Serrales’ gardens which included European formal gardens, a butterfly garden (no butterflies but some really cute turtles) and a Japanese garden. As Bill stated, “Mrs. Don Q certainly had a lot of time on her hands to spend Mr. Don Q’s hard earned money”, but it was money well spent and the gardens were immaculate.
For the night, we had an Airbnb right off the town square and we had invited our cruising friends that we have not seen since our time in Luperon, DR to join us for the night. They had left the DR while we were home in the States for Thanksgiving so it was great to see them again. The next day, we drove a very winding road up into the mountains to the Pomarrosa Coffee Plantation. We were a little late for our scheduled tour because the stop at McDonald’s took us 30 minutes! There was no one in the drive through line so we pulled up to order our Egg McMuffins (been a long time since I have had one and I was having some withdrawals). We were informed that they did not have Egg McMuffins! What? Not only do the Puerto Ricans not have Statehood, they don’t have Egg McMuffins? What a cruel world! The employee at the drive through could not understand our poor Spanish and we could not understand her limited English so at one point, she spewed out a whole string of Spanish to which we said, “Huh?” and she came over the speaker and said, “Come here!” That got us all laughing and once we reached the window, she had located the manager who spoke English and she took our simple order of three McGriddles and a coffee. She said it would be “a couple of minutes” so we pulled up to a parking spot. In about five minutes, the coffee was delivered. Then, we waited. And waited. And waited. I finally lost patience and went inside to get our food. I am pretty sure they noticed my scowl even with a mask on because I had the McGriddles in hand within 45 seconds. Once we finally arrived for our tour, we had a very enjoyable time learning about not only the history of Puerto Rican coffee but of coffee in general. The property was beautiful which was a bit of a miracle given the owner’s description of the havoc wrought by Hurricane Maria and an earthquake a few years earlier. Island people are definitely a resilient people. The remainder of our week consisted of us pulling down the mizzen sail so that I could repair a few tears. Or so we thought….once we pulled the mizzen down, there were so many tears and holes in it that we were amazed it had been able to hold wind. While I could repair it, we decided it would look like the Clampetts had left Beverly Hills to sail the Caribbean so we have a sail guy coming this week to give a quote on a new mizzen sail. Always never ending projects on a boat! Stay warm and dry in the coming week and cuddle up with your favorite Valentine….by the way….it is 82 degrees and sunny here in Puerto Rico (sorry….we just couldn’t resist!)
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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