The Captain's Logs are below.

Read the Crew's Views.

Back to Captain Logs 2000

Pride of Baltimore II entered San Juan harbor on the morning of November 9th. The crew took in sail as we passed El Moro, the old Spanish fort that once guarded the harbor entrance. The radio crackled and San Juan Port Control welcomed us back to San Juan, and gave permission to proceed to our berth. Just ahead of us, a tanker full of molasses was tying up, its cargo destined for the Bacardi distillery. We had been at sea for 21 days and sailed 3,688 nautical miles by the log. San Juan was looking pretty good to us.

But San Juan was not intended to be an opportunity to relax, and it wasn't. It was well that we arrived a day early, because there was an extra day's worth of business to take care of. There was fuel to get, as well as hardware, parts, and supplies to track down. Some spare parts had arrived from the office, some of which were put straight into service. Our larder was barren when we came into port, so Andy the Cook had a big job to reprovision. We needed propane, too.

Then there was the ship itself. There was a sail that needed some stitching and a mast hoop that needed repair. Guessing that it might be our last chance at cosmetic maintenance, the crew prepped the entire rail the day we got in and varnished it the following day. The hull was looking tired, too. Paint had been knocked off over recent months, so we painted as much of that as we could. All this got done while moving the boat for fuel, taking on stores, and dealing with the inevitable contingencies that arise.

If a voyage entwines a crew like the yarns of a rope, then mail loosens the lay, for it is a harbinger of separate and unsettled futures fast approaching as another year draws down. It reminds us of others and of elsewhere, and of the many unanswered questions that each of us carries within, but are so easily forestalled in the perennial present tense of shipboard existence. Ice cream, cold beer, and a newspaper count among the simple pleasures of the harbor. Mail is not so simple, but we love it anyway.

Old San Juan is a charming place, and we were docked right in the thick of it. It is, of course, touristy but without the tourists it might well be a ruin. Most of the buildings are over two hundred years old and some are as much as four hundred years old. We forget that the Spanish were building cities and cathedrals in this part of the world a century before the settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth were starving in their crude hovels. The buildings are massively constructed of stone and pierced by numerous doorways and windows. Up aloft ornate balconies fabricated from wrought iron overlook the narrow streets below, resurrecting memories of our time in Portugal.

Pride II's location in the heart of the old city meant that we had a lot of foot traffic on the dock. There was often a crowd watching our doings and courteously asking questions. The local people seemed to find the vessel fascinating. Our proximity to the cruise ship wharf created a steady flow of passengers, many of whom were from Maryland. "Hey, hon," came the call. "Got any steamed crabs?" "Say hi to PG County!" said another. Family friends of Brad Fleury's from Glen Burnie stopped by for a look at the ship. A U.S. Army officer from Baltimore, now stationed in Puerto Rico, stopped to say hello and share recollections of the old Inner Harbor. A gentleman who had built a model of Pride II happened to pass by and was awed by the sight of the real thing. He had never seen her in the flesh before. Some people approached us saying, "I saw the masts and I knew it had to be the Pride." As often as not, they went on to say that they had never actually seen her before, but they recognized her just the same.

The big news in San Juan was the election. Not the Presidential Election, but the gubernatorial one. Puerto Rico elected a new Governor and their first woman at that. We, on the other hand, made what sense we could of the national election. We were still at sea for a full day after the election and followed events through the BBC. We even held our own mock election aboard. The results closely resembled the national outcome, except for a write-in vote for "binoculars." Said to have the "vision thing." Strange it was to come into port and find the question still unresolved and growing more complex with every report.

After several hours sweating in the aft cabin as the sun rose higher, both efforts were successful. Chris and I were able to send and receive messages via the laptop while

Chris Hutson, our shipboard computer guru in Baltimore, talked Lee through the process of swapping hardrives on the main computer. In the aftermath, we all felt pretty clever.

I never imagined I'd be telling a sea story that revolved around computer trouble, but I guess it's a sign of the times. Such equipment is standard at sea nowadays on many vessels. Both we at sea, and our people ashore, have grown accustomed to the capabilities that technology affords, and we all expect the equipment to work.

If the people of Puerto Rico are to be famous for one thing, it should be their hospitality and warmth. I think every crewmember had an encounter of some type with the locals whereby those qualities came to light. I have spent time in Puerto Rico before and was similarly well treated. That lasting impression was thoroughly renewed during this visit.