April 28th April 30th Puerto Rico

April 28^th and 29^th We had great intentions of doing lots of provisioning as well as some sightseeing around San Juan. Unfortunately when looking at the distance we have to cover to arrive in Turks and Caicos Islands by the 4^th to pick up Kristie and Brad, we have to pick up the pace to arrive in time.

We basically spent the 2 days provisioning, the first day we drove into San Juan, we were amazed by the amount of traffic on the road, which at times was snail pace. It’s a 6 lane highway most of the way and it was busy. We did not expect it to be such a metropolis!

Robbie dropped me at the huge shopping mall while he went to Techys to buy his drone. He wasn’t away long as the guy was busy so Robbie has to go back tomorrow. We had a wander around the shops including Macy’s and JC Penny’s. Very nice it feels like we are back in civilisation.

We drove over to the super Walmart and did a lot of the non-perishable items and it was 2 full trolley loads. Back to the boat to unload and by then it was dinner time.

We woke up to torrential rain, thunder and lightning. We have not seen rain like this the whole way on our travels. We drove to the Ralphs supermarket in Fajardo and again managed to fill another 2 trolleys. We are stocking up on everything as we have heard things are very expensive and can be scarce in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Thank goodness Nordhavn make lots of nooks and crannies into storage. We just have to remember where we put stuff!

The rain was absolutely bucketing down and we and the grocery bags got very wet. Once we got to the marina we just pulled into the parking bay and although it was covered we still got soaked. We loaded the groceries into one of the large plastic carts and one of the marina guys drove us to Southern Star. We were absolutely saturated.

It took us a while to unload and then to put away and repack all the meat we had brought. We had to rush as we were supposed to be picking up the drone back in San Juan at 1.00pm. We were late but Robbie rang and explained and all was good.

We picked up the drone and after a bit of mucking around it was determined that our iPad didn’t work with the DJI app, so we had to drive to Best Buy and buy an IPad mini 4. It’s very cute.

Back on the highway and the traffic was again snail’s pace for a lot of the way. It was still raining although not as heavy. I set up the new iPad while we drove. I tried to download the i500 card game on it but I couldn’t find it in the app store which was disappointing. So I downloaded “Gin Rummy” instead.

The last 2 days we have taken our router with our “Roaming Expert” sim card for data in it, in the car, with us and it has given us internet and GPS Navigation while we drive. It’s the best thing we ever did and we both kick ourselves we never found out about this earlier in our world travels. It seriously would have saved us so much time, money and stress. We no longer have to rush to get a sim card and then spend hours sorting it out to get data in each new country. I cannot speak highly enough of the service or the customer service they give us, even sending us a reminder when we get to about half way of our monthly limit, this month we got an email at 5.8 GB and again at 8.2Gb of our 10 Gb month limit. We no longer bother buying phone sim cards either, we just skype using our data. Thank you Roaming Expert!

It was a relief to get back to the marina. We organised to leave tomorrow morning early except that we had to return the rental car and the office won’t open until 8am so it means a later start than we intended.

Robbie had a play with the drone on the simulator mode for a while, he wants to get some practice in so he can have drone races with Laust from L’Adagio. Then we skyped Paul and Tracey Grace for a catch up. Paul keeps telling us we are doing the best thing, there is not much happening in Australia right now.

April 30^th We got away just after 8am and had a very non eventful 50 odd mile passage to Salinas, at times the current was against us we were only making 4.8 knots coming down the East side, thankfully it later picked up and we were doing 7.5 knots. Salinas is where Robbie had organised for cheap fuel at .52c per litre. There’s usually a downside to this, and here it is – a PAINFULLY slow pump, we started pumping at 4.30pm, it’s currently 8.45pm and we have only taken 1333 litre out of the 2800 that we estimate we need. Hence we have arranged to spend the night on the fuel dock. There are 2 men standing around watching the pump, and we have to pay at the restaurant. We have paid for the night on the fuel dock at $71 US dollars.

As I write I am cooking a Lamb mini roast with roast potato, pumpkin, carrot, red onion and baby capsicums. The Fridge and Freezers are bursting at the seams. Brad and Kristie you better be hungry and thirsty!

Its now 8.45pm and we are still going! 2495 litres But hey its only 4+ hours, is it as bad as filling up in Indonesia from 44 gallon drums? I’ll ask Robbie tomorrow!!