Back in the Saddle.

We’re back baby! Back in the cruising groove. Back in the swing of things. Back in the saddle, some would say.

And it feels downright AMAZING to be cruising once again! As much as we loved living a cozy air-conditioned marina life during a good chunk of hurricane season, it feels so so great to be back sailing and living on the hook.

^^cannonballs (with flippers on, of course) at our first anchorage to celebrate!^^

We waved goodbye to Marina Pescaderia first thing last Tuesday morning and set sail for the Cabo Rojo Lost Morillos Lighthouse and anchorage on the southwest tip of Puerto Rico.

We knew leaving Puerto Real that the southern coast of Puerto Rico could quite possibly give us our roughest sail yet. And since we really don’t love being subjected to miserable sailing conditions and are in absolutely no hurry to get anywhere fast, we’ve opted for somewhat short, leisurely morning sails, basically hopping from one town to the next as we head east towards the Spanish Virgin Islands.

Short, early morning passages, in essence, take the thorns right out of the path east. We leave around sunrise each morning and arrive at our next destination before the trade winds kick up (usually around 10am or so) and before we find ourselves beating into the wind.

We’ve lovingly started referring to these quick and easy morning sails as “Kalm for Kim” sails because comfortable, casual passages are certainly my fav!

The only part about ^^our plan^^ that stinks is that we are basically stuck motor-sailing along the southern coast of Puerto Rico since there is not a lick of wind to be had that early in the morning. It’s certainly not ideal, but our hands are kinda tied in this case.

After painlessly pulling out of the marina at 7:45AM last Tuesday, we were pulling into our first anchorage before we knew it, and dropping hook by 9:45AM. Our first stop was the quaint anchorage on the western side of the Cabo Rojo Los Morillos Lighthouse and Playa Sucia. We had scoped out the lighthouse back in July while we had a rental car and a long list of sight-seeing to-do’s…and now we got to see it from the water!

Since we had already hiked to the lighthouse, we spent the day just soaking up typical cruising life…jumping off the boat and swimming and snorkeling, dinghy-ing around the mangrove-lined anchorage, spotting tons of photo-worthy sea life in the area (including a huge school of spotted rays), taking naps (because, why not), and enjoying a gorgeous sunset in the cockpit with a sundowner or two in hand.

Not too shabby of a Tuesday, eh?!

Now that we’ve experienced this particular anchorage, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for much longer than a day or two stay since it was a bit stinky-stanky from the mangroves nearby and decently rolly from swell rounding the lighthouse point. But overall, not terrible for our quick overnight.

Let me just tell ya, it feels so freaking great to be back cruising!

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