June 1. Cabo Rojo,

As we were the last day in Samana, neither one of us including Toni and Stacey on Welsh Rover had been feeling well. From previous experiences traveling in Latin countries Sid and I know all to well the symptoms and went to the pharmacy to buy some medication for amoeba, parasites and other critters. The treatment usually takes 3 days and we all felt better, except for Sid. He still had montezuma's revenge and wasn't feeling good at all, still to today. So we spend a couple extra days in Boqueron. What a cute little town, reminds Stacey and me more of Key West except for the many vendors along the street selling fresh oysters and clams which they chuck to order. Usually I'm the first in line to indulge on these yummy critters, but just after going through the treatment I wasn't going to take a chance to get sick again and ignored them. It looks like the Puerto Ricans are celebrating Memorial day as well, as everybody was out and about. The streets filled with people from grandma to kids and grand kids, beaches were packed and jet skis buzzing around. Saturday was great as the police wrote tickets to the annoying jet skiers, on Sunday nothing though and so they all buzzed around us, using us a slalom coarse. It felt like being swarmed by wasps, except these wasps left wakes. I guess they don't celebrate Memorial Day quite as much as we do as Monday was really quite again, not even one jet ski was on the water. Boqueron is a small little town and has only the essentials for provisioning. All we could find on meat was frozen chicken and frozen pork chops and in the other refrigerator we found some wilted lettuce for 3 bucks each, some giant carrots, huge cabbages for way too much and apples. For good provisioning we would have to take two busses to Mayaguez, but decided to wait until we make it to Ponce, which is the second largest city in Puerto Rico. We pulled anchor on Wednesday early at 7 to avoid the daily trade winds which start to blow around 11. Although the wind was blowing already, but knowing we only had 8 miles to go to Cabo Rojo, we stuck our noses out and headed for it. Not even one mile out of the anchorage the wind started to blow 15 and as we turned the corner towards Cabo Rojo it blew 20. It took no time for the sea to build to a nasty 4 by 4 chops. By that I mean they are as tall as they are wide and if you drive into them as we had to, they can bring a boat to a dead stop at which the boat is most vulnerable to be flopped around. It was a lumpy, bumpy ride to Cabo Rojo, which is somewhat protected, but the swells built by the wind still roll around the corner and make this anchorage a bit rolly. I was going to write this log entry yesterday already but we were rolling side to side and sitting in front of the computer in this was not all too fun and I had to go on deck to recuperate. Sid placed the flopper-stopper out to make this anchorage more comfortable for us. The flopper-stopper is a great tool, it looks like a giant stainless steel folder, you hang it a couple of feet to the beam via spinnaker pool into the water. As the swell come rolling by it pulls the flopper-stopper up and down in which it opens and closes and slows down the flopping back and fourth effect by 75%. A great tool to have. As every afternoon, we get together with Welsh Rover and make a new war plan for the following day. We learned that we had to leave earlier in the morning to avoid the trade winds, so we decided to get up extra early today at 4 am and head further east. For once the alarm clock woke us up and not smoke. Ever since Luperon in the DR, each anchorage we wake up to the smell of smoke in the middle of the night, which burns your nostrils. We haven't figured out yet what they burn and why, trash, sugar cane or make a fire to keep mosquitoes away. So during the night Sid got up several times and at 2 am the wind was blowing a steady 8 knots. At 4 we noticed to our dismay that the wind was now blowing a steady 15 with gusts up to 19 knots. After talking to Welsh Rover via VHF radio we decided that this is definitely a NO go and so we'll spend another one or two days here as they predicted the trades to increase for the next few days. In the mean time listening to Chris Parker our weather guru this will be the condition for the next 5 days, we may have a small brake on Saturday. I guess with 2 carrots, 1 chayote, 1 cucumber and 3 tomatoes left we will not run out of food quite yet. Maybe we'll try to do some fishing later on for some protein, if not there is a variety of cans aboard Paradise. I'm starting to understand now, why so many cruisers, new at cruising life, give up cruising after just one season. This passage know as the Thorny Passage is not a pick-nick it is rough sailing and always a waiting game for calmer winds and can take the fun out of cruising. I hope Mona was the biggest thorn and only small ones or non will follow. We know that after every long, tough stretch there is a beautiful anchorage waiting for us where we can relax, so this is still what we like to do and what we do best. Hey you have good days and bad days at work. We do the same. Besides today we had a beautiful morning as the clear sky was filled with twinkling stars and now and then a shooting star would race towards earth, reflecting in the water, which was sparkling too with phosphoresces. It was a twinkling above and below and we didn't mind that we got up for nothing, because it was quite something.