Our long awaited landfall at Mayaguez on the west coast of Puerto Rico was brief, shortly after we arrived we called the Customs & Border Protection to announce our arrival but discovered it was Three Kings Day and Customs were closed until Monday. As the sun rose over the huge bay at Mayaguez it revealed that we were well and truly the only boat anchored off of what looked like quite an industrial city. The CBP advised us to continue on to the small town of Boqueron where apparently the marina could arrange for the officials to visit.

We had a glorious sail down to Boqueron, with a huge dolphin riding our bow wave as we entered the channel in between the reef into the large protected bay.  Unlike the east coast, the west is relatively undeveloped and therefore quite beautiful. When we took the dinghy in to the marina we discovered they too were closed until Monday due to the festivities, so we gave up for the day and after a few well earned beers and some wifi in Galloways Bar we enjoyed a peaceful night sleep.  The next day we were asking in Galloways where we could get a taxi or rental when we discovered that another boat had actually managed to get an appointment later that day with a Customs officer back in Mayaguez and so we tagged along with them and shared the cost of the lift. Now we were legal arrivals with an annual cruising permit for just US19.

The Three Kings festival went on all weekend in the beautiful seaside town of Boqueron, the numerous bars and restaurants were heaving day and night, their competing music pounding its way across the still water. We slept like babies regardless. By Monday it was like a ghost town, the place obviously thrives on its weekends. There is a public dinghy dock, a small supermarket  and even a marine store where we managed to get some new fuel filters so we were happy.  It was certainly nice to stretch our legs and walk the long beach, it reminded me of Sun Bay in Vieques,  I even spotted a manatee in the water on the dinghy ride back to Joy.   The people are super friendly and the town and beach are pretty clean.  This is most certainly taking a place in my top 5 destinations in the Caribbean.