The last we left you Vicky’s mother (Jean) was leaving and her pal, Julie Bane, had just arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Julie spent the night with us in Old San Juan and after dropping Jean at the airport we continued a morning walk around Old Town. The architecture is fantastic with plenty of shopping because of the cruise ships!
That afternoon we stopped by El Yunque (the rainforest) again because Julie needed to see it and we would never tire of the beauty.
We opted for a vigorous hike with Julie. We took the trail to the waterfall which was well worth the trek. The locals come here to hang out and cool off which is a nice change from going to the beaches. They are probably like us…there are so many beaches it starts to all blend.
The waterfall and pools are memorable because they are ‘different’!
After our hike we stopped by a beachside restaurant that provided delicious local fare. After our big dinner we stopped by the grocery store and provisioned for our next week. Tired we crawled into bed early. Julie had arrived after coming via the Miami Food and Wine Festival so she needed a good rest!
While Ed dropped off the car the next morning Julie and Vicky got the boat ready to leave the dock (Sun Bay Marina). Ed arrived and we threw the lines for a nice sail to Culebra. Julie was anxious for some fresh fish so we threw out the line while we were underway. Once again we heard, ‘wee, wee, wee’! From the initial look at the colors we thought…yeah, a Mahi! Upon a closer look it turned out it was a barracuda. Darn! Back it went.
Our first stop was on the west coast of Culebra. We went beach combing that afternoon. Julie has an amazing collection of shells at her house, all of which she has collected herself. She found a bunch to add to the collection!
Julie really wanted to see what it is like to live on a sailboat so after dinner she got a chance to experience doing dishes. In order to conserve water we do our initial cleaning of the dishes in salt water and then do a hot water, fresh rinse below deck.
The next day, Julie donned Ed’s wetsuit (just a tad bit too big!) and Vicky suited up. We jumped off the back of the boat because the reef is just a short distance away. On our way to the reef we got to swim with around a dozen turtles! The fish sightseeing was also awesome. After an hour of snorkeling we were back on the boat ready to warm up a bit.
Since Julie’s trip is a short one, we pulled up anchor and headed over to the east coast in the bay just off of the main town in Culebra. That night we went to shore for happy hour at the Dinghy Dock. We were having such a great time with the locals that we decided to stay and have burgers. After burgers there was Karaoke. Normally we don’t participate because…well…because our singing doesn’t improve with the consumption of alcohol and it isn’t too good from the start! Julie and Vicky decided they could provide some decent backup singing though so they joined the owner in Bad, Bad Leroy Brown! And then, we did subject the patrons to a trio of Summer Fun (John Travolta and Olivia Newton John) with Ed joining us!
We made a quick exit after our performance back to the boat! The alcohol consumption continued with Ed donning the ‘Boto Glasses’ we bought on a similar drinking spree in Key West!
The next day Vicky and Julie took a short taxi ride out to Flamingo Beach (one of those ‘top 10 beaches’ in the world) and had a great afternoon of sunning and recovering from the night before. There are local snack shacks so Julie finally got her fresh fish since Boto is out of fresh fish right now. Yes, a police boat came too close to our stern and cut our fishing line where we lost our lucky ‘Raymond fishing lure’ and we haven’t had much luck since!
The next morning we are up early to dinghy Julie to the airport on Culebra where she will fly back to San Juan for her connecting flight back to Atlanta, GA (where she will have her ‘Ass in the Water and Toes in the Clay’!). Julie got a taste of our life aboard Boto but didn’t stay long enough to truly get a sense of how relaxing it can be! Come back for a longer visit!
After Julie left we made our way up to Culebrita (a whopping 2 miles) to spend a night before heading over to St. Thomas. Imagine!...they don’t let puppy dogs ashore on the south side so we took the dinghy around to the north shore where Chula had a good romp! 
She is glad all the company is gone because it is finally back to ‘All About Me!’. 
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