Sailing Ohana

We enjoyed Puerto Rico so much more than we expected to! It feels very much like another country, but it also has the conveniences of being a US territory. We stayed on the west coast in Puerto Real, which is a sweet fishing village. We rented a car and drove to Mayagüez which is the “city” to the north, and did some grocery shopping at the supermarket there…. Much, much better than the Bahamas, and not expensive.  We spent a couple of days with our kid boat friends at the beaches and town of Rincón, which was my favorite. Rincón has a laid-back surf town vibe, but with a European flair in the downtown plaza. The kids all skimboarded, surfed, and played in the waves. One day when Jackson and his friend were skimboarding, a local skimboarding professional came over and gave them some tips and boarded with them for a while. It was amazing to see how quickly they improved!

We ate really well while we were there, too. We found an amazing sushi food truck on the side of the highway, and an excellent restaurant that our friends found from a Google search, which specializes in local cuisine. Mofongo and asapao were our favorite dishes. Rincón has a farmer’s market where we bought some fresh produce and two plants — basil and mint. I am going to try to keep them alive.

Another highlight of our time based out of Puerto Real was the Gozolandia waterfalls. After an very scenic drive through the mountains there are two falls that are tucked back in the jungle.  They charge a nominal fee for parking at the trailhead, and the hike is a well-maintained path. We all jumped off and swam around in the pools. It reminded us of our time in Costa Rica. We spent the afternoon/night in Boqueron so that we would have a good place to leave from for our next little jump.

One of our friends here is a yoga instructor so she leads yoga when we have time, and a good spot for it. She took this photo of me on the dock at the Marina Puerto Real.

We are enjoying our time with the other kid boats, and are so grateful to have like-minded people to travel and explore with. We are also struggling with the needs of each person in our family, and are constantly negotiating boatschool, screen time, chores, friends, activities, and emotional needs. I assume we would be doing this at home too, but it would probably feel less intense. Jackson wants to go home because he misses his friends and life in Lyons. He tries to have a good attitude about being here (and at times, he totally loves it) while at the same time spending a lot of energy keeping in touch with his friends at home, which keeps him from letting go and being present here. He’s not 13 yet, but he definitely has become a teenager. Spencer wants to be on his iPad any time there is a moment of downtime. I worry that this is hurting our relationships with both boys, because even when things are going great, we spend so much time dealing with what is not working. There is an feeling that being on such a unique and special journey, it seems crazy to be anything but happy. I often ask myself, “How can we have xyz problem when we’re in paradise?!?” The answer is that although we are in paradise, we have the added pressures of living on a sailboat. It is not easy, and should not be perceived as a vacation from reality. We bring with us our personal skills and tools, as well as our baggage.

We have such a short time on this adventure; it is so sad to think of ending it early, and it is impossibly difficult to know what is best. Do we push through and stick to the plan, regardless of the quality of the experience? Could Jackson go home without us and stay with family friends? Should we accept that this is not going the way we had hoped, and adjust our timeline, or do we just call it, and make a u turn after St. Croix? Today (I’m writing this in St. John, USVI) I feel like looking for plane tickets to Colorado.