Ready to move on.

We have been here at Puerto Del Ray Marina for over a week.  We planned to stay for a week but we are waiting for our generator.  The week started out with cleaning and repairs.  After our time offshore we had salt everywhere.  Just moving from the cockpit to below deck spreads the salt, not to mention the salt water that found it's way in.  Cori spent two days doing thirteen loads of laundry.  Everything got washed: bedding, cushion covers, towels, clothes and more.  By "everything" we mean everything.  Ben and Bruiser even got a ride in the washer.  They were not impressed and do not want to go on that amusement ride again.

Everything below also had to be wiped down.  The zippers on the dodger were replaced after a wind gust ripped one out so the sewing machine came out, there were a couple of repairs to the sails and all round boat stuff to be taken care of.  I got replacement bolts to fix the auto pilot mechanism properly so that should not be an issue again.  For some reason the fresh water pressure pump decided to stop working.  We carry a spare, actually two spares, but that is another story.  While replacing the pump I redid the plumbing under the galley sink to make it a bit more user friendly but it took all day.  We found that my mp3 player is truly dead and we were not able to get our SeriusXM radio to work.  After talking to customer service we found that they do not transmit into the Caribbean.  Since we are going to be here for a while we canceled the service and packaged it all up and put it into storage.  We are going to miss it.  We listened to it most evenings not having television and it supplied a soundtrack during the day.  We will really miss it when Nascar starts up again.

Water got into one of the navigation lights and shorted it out and after spending a lot of time trying to get it working again we decided it needed to be replaced.  We met a couple on the dock and they offered us a ride to West Marine.  West did not have the one we needed but the store in San Juan had one.  Due to it being inventory time they could not ship it to the local store.  We told them to put it on hold and we would come and pick it up.  We decided we had done enough work and needed a day off.  We reserved a rental car for Friday and made the run to San Juan.  After we picked up the part we headed over to the old town to act like tourists.  We spent the afternoon at Castillo San Cristobal, a fort built by the Spanish to protect the city.  Over a 150 year period the fort grew and a wall was built around the city.  The fort and it's companion Castillo San Felipe del Morrow are now a part of our National Park system.  I love going to a national park and showing them my senior pass and getting in free.  If you are over 62 you need to get one of these.

On the way back we stopped in Luquillo at the kiosks.  Think of a strip mall with small open air bars, restaurants and shops with the beach behind.  It was late so most of the shops were closed but we were looking for dinner.  We decided on kiosk 22 with a name I cannot pronounce or spell.  We were seated on the roof with a view of the beach until it got dark and had our dinner.  I ordered the skin-on pork chop and Cori ordered the fish with mofongo as her side. Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish made with mashed plantains and takes the place of potatoes with many dishes.  The pork chop was one of the biggest I had ever had.  The outer skin of the pig is left on and is scored before frying.  What they do not mention is the half inch of fat between the skin and meat is also left on.  It is cooked so that the skin is crispy.  I never did figure out how to cut a piece with a combination of all three, I mostly had a bite of skin and fat and then a bite of meat.  I have to admit it was good.

We have just about everything done but are waiting on the generator.  We carry a portable Honda 2000i generator to help with keeping the batteries charged.  It will not run so we needed to find a repair shop.  One of the workers at the marina knew of a repair shop but not the name of it.  He was able to give us directions so we stopped to check if they could work on it when we made the run to West Marine.  We made a quick run back to the boat to get it and dropped it off on Wednesday.  They/we misunderstood the urgency and they did not get started on it until Friday.  We notified the marina we will be staying a couple more days.  What we know is that the low oil sensor is reporting low oil and this prevents it from starting or running.  We are waiting to hear back from them, they said they would be able to have it back to us around mid-day Monday.  They even offered to deliver it to the marina.

Once the generator is back we will be ready to head out.  We won't be going far, we will be checking out some of the islands close by before moving on to the Virgin Islands and beyond.