Crossing the Atlantic the easy way Part 1 - big stone fortifications in Puerto Rico

Time to cross the pond at sea level for a change.  Left Ft. Lauderdale October 30th for a 6 week cruise. Think I'm talking about crossing a great big ocean in one of these? (I have a friend that did exactly that a few years ago, but he's certifiably nuts).

Since I'm not married anymore, I no longer have a death wish. That boat (besides being wind driven instead of using nice predictable diesel) is not nearly big enough.  How 'bout this baby?

This is a Perini Navi (I took this picture in Tenerife, Canary Islands) 

Perini Navi to sailboats is like Gulfstream Jets

 to general aviation (they rock). My guess is this dingy goes for about $25M (used). It's a very capable, luxurious ocean going sailboat (maybe 120 feet)? Still, no way. Not big enough (plus Perini Navi won't take a check for one of their boats without 2 forms of photo ID and I only have a drivers license). Why isn't this thing big enough? Have you ever seen what goes on in the middle of the damn ocean?

The above two pictures aren't from the web.  I took these right off our veranda.  While they may not impress you initially, there's a couple things you need to keep in mind. Our veranda was about 80 feet above the water.  These aren't rogue waves.  These waves accompanied us for 6 days across and for 6 days back across. That's because the part of the Atlantic we were cruising in is famous for the winds. They're called the trade winds and blowboat sailors have been taking advantage of them for hundreds of years. They blow more or less constantly.  Since waves are a direct result of wind (speed, duration, and fetch) guess what happens? Yup, those are 14+ foot waves. In a "boat" this size:

you can barely feel them. The difference in ride between a 55,000 ton ship and a 157 ton blowboat going through big waves is remarkable (to say the least). The difference in speed also comes into play.  The MS Maasdam (Holland America) can blast through 14 foot seas at 18 knots. In any smaller boat you'd have to slow down.  6 knots would be considered safe.  That TRIPLES the duration of the crossing from 6 days to 18. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that I can't throw up for 18 days in a row and still think I'm having a fun time. 
The Maasdam holds 1,838 passengers and crew. Human that is. But we weren't always the only ones on board. No, not rats, visitors like this buzzard wannabe:

This is an Osprey that we picked up a couple hundred miles off the Florida coast.  I was surprised to see a fish-eating land bird this far out to sea. He was happy to take a rest (and a dump) on the foremast. We also had this yellow warbler stowaway along for the ride:

(This isn't my liver spotted head)

From his behavior, I'd guess that this wasn't this bird's first cruise. He had very little fear of humans (actually came to my hand and pecked my finger).  He was extremely adept at catching all the flying bugs we picked up in port. He came aboard in Ft. Lauderdale and disembarked in Puerto Rico. I wonder if he hitched a ride back on another ship or just took the 4:30PM American Airlines flight to Miami like most tourists. He wasn't the only small flying visitor.

This is a gray catbird. Catbirds are cousins of the mockingbird and are normally very very shy and retiring. Usually you only hear them in the bushes, you don't see them.  Even if you only hear them - it's easy to tell a catbird apart from a mockingbird. A mockingbird will sing the same song phrase several times (much like an annoying drunk in a bar).  A catbird sings the phrase only twice. If you don't hear him correctly the first two times, too bad, he won't repeat it.  

First stop was Puerto Rico. I used to have PR as part of my territory when I worked for Siemens so, trust me, I know the place quite well. 

Most people in the US think of Puerto Rico like the view I saw looking directly down from the veranda

Look closely for the roundish white doodad floating in the water right next to the dock.  Here's a telephoto shot

That would be grossly unfair to Puerto Rico.  It's actually a very beautiful island filled with quite happy people. I'll leave the commentary on Puerto Rico alone and only consider the fort in old San Juan. During all my business trips there I had never taken the time to visit it. Some people love to visit churches as they travel. Others love forts. God knows there's enough of each at every destination to keep both groups happy. Me? I'll happily look at a couple, then I get sick of them and look for something more interesting - like a bar or cigar store. The fort in old San Juan is unique, however.   Compare the fort in San Juan (construction started in 1539)

To the fort in Civitavecchia, Italy (its pronounced 'chitty' 'chitty' 'bang' 'bang' by the way)

and the fort in Almeria, Spain (its pronounced "I'll marry ya")

See the difference? No? One's Catholic, one's Presbyterian, and one's Lutheran.  Aw crap, I thought I was on churches already. The difference between the forts is that San Juan's is strategic and the others are merely tactical. Every single port we pulled into had an old stone fort.  Most of the time they were for the protection of the port against marauding neighbors, pirates, smugglers, and assorted idiots. Castillo San Felipe del Morrow (that's San Juan fort's full name), however, was critical to Spain's plundering of South America.  Once again, location, location, location..... San Juan was at the far western end of Spain's empire.  The natural harbor was critical for ships provisioning up for the long voyage across the Atlantic to Spain (Jose's Bar and Grill on the beach played a big role as well). You could argue that Cuba and other places had harbors that were equal or better. San Juan's was much much easier to defend, plus conquering the wimpy native Tainos indians took the heavily armed Spaniards less than a week. Below, looking out through a sentry box, is the magic 1/2 mile entrance

 Modern freighter entering harbor

look how close it has to get

Piece of cake to defend the harbor from a direct attack by a wooden man-o-war. All you have to do is load up the cannon with "hot shot" (heated cannonballs) and blow the bastard to pieces while you set him on fire.

Purists will note that the cannon in the first picture is incapable of even being loaded, much less fired. 

Students of General Sun Tzu (the Chinese warrior, not the Chinese chicken guy - that was General Tso) will realize that if a frontal attack on the fort by water was hopeless, then put marines ashore elsewhere and march over to the fort across the land. In 1625 the Spaniards damn near lost the fort in exactly this manner.  By the Dutch, no less. They reluctantly erected a monument in honor of the near defeat.

They took the lesson to heart and over the next 50 years built up the fort to the point where it became the largest Spanish fort ever built. In 1595, Englishman Sir Francis Drake attacked San Juan with his fleet. He failed, however, and the Spanish gunners shot a cannonball through his cabin. Fortunately for Frank, he was on deck at the time.  During the Spanish American War in 1898 the United States attacked the fort . The Spanish gave up and signed the Treaty of Paris. To show they were good sports (and probably to dump off a lot of land that had become a pain-in-the-ass to take care of now that they had stripped it of all the gold) they tossed in the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, along with Puerto Rico to the US.  According to Wikipedia - in 1915 a lowly lieutenant (officer of the day) ordered the shooting of an armed German supply ship that was trying to sneak out of the harbor without settling it's bar tab, I mean, was trying to resupply German submarines out at sea. The shots ordered by Lt. Marxuach are widely regarded to be the first shots fired by the United States in World War I,
As usual, during WWII the US added some improvements to the fort (having been renamed Fort Brooke)

In my opinion,the prettiest thing at the fort (besides the view of the ocean) are the sentry boxes.

Complete with built in bathroom

Even the ceilings are cool

I can't imagine pulling guard duty on a hot, windless day in one though.

Fence Surfing in the Caribbean

This is Maho Beach.  From the name you'd think it was in Hawaii, but it's not.

It's in St. Marten (or Sint Maarten if you're Dutch). Sint Maarten is a neat little Caribbean island where the Dutch own one side and the French own the other.

For those of us that grew up in La Jolla, Maho Beach is a warm version of WindNsea or Sea Lane beach. In other words it has a very sharp shore rise which produces waves that last for all of 3 seconds.

Make no mistake about it - these are not waves for inexperienced swimmers (or old guys like me that useta play in them).  These waves are homicidal and will try to kill you.  The picture of the above wave has no reference points, but trust me, this is a 9 footer. You don't want anything to do with a wave like that unless you're in terrific shape and stupid.

As soon as the ship docked we took a taxi over to this world famous bar.

This is the renowned Sunset Bar and Grill (not to be confused with the one Sheryl Crow sings about). The taxi ride over was memorable as our driver was an enormous, bald, black man.  The people we shared the taxi with were looking at the bars as we drove through town to get to the Sunset Bar. During the ride our driver commented  "You Americans and your alcohol.  Too much hepatic disease" .  What?  "Mon, you need to do what I do.  At 5:00, this will be my party".  At this point he produced his hard pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket. Nestled in the middle of the cigarettes was a carefully rolled joint. "Mon, this is Holland, its legal here, just like it is in Amsterdam". That was hilarious, but I couldn't resist asking him why he mentioned  hepatic disease (only someone in medicine would say hepatic disease - most lay people would say liver disease). Turns out our driver was older than he looked and was, in fact, the island's retired pathologist. I asked him why he drove a cab and he replied that he owned around 20 rental properties and this was a way for him to check on them and make money at the same time. Truth be told, I think what he was really doing was driving around the island all day checking on his girlfriends and scoping out new ones.

So what does all this have to do with fence surfing (my term and I'm proud of it) and why is the Sunset Bar and Grill so famous? Simple - location, location, location. You see, if you look closely at the pictures above you'll notice that I've only shown you the water side. The water's nice and all, but it's whats on the other side of the beach that is so unique.

This is runway 10 of the Princess Juliana International Airport and Maho Beach is well known to any pilot or plane enthusiast (Mahol Beach is at the very bottom of the picture above) here's why:

That is is not a zoomed picture.  If you're standing on the beach when a plane comes in for a landing, you'll swear that its going to land on your head.

Arriving aircraft must touch down as close as possible to the beginning of Runway 10 due to the short runway length of 2,300 metres (7,500 ft),^[1] resulting in aircraft on their final approach flying over the beach at minimal altitude.  No kidding.  It is spectacular and LOUD.

 That's all well and good, but it's what happens when KLM arrives that the main show begins.  Arrival times are posted at the bar on a modified surf board.

Anticipation is high as the KLM arrival time approaches.   With good reason.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you.  That's a 747 and if you thought the twin engine Airbus was loud, it pales in comparison to the thunder a 747 makes. Check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPlCEXAqhnU&feature=player_embedded  The landing, loud and exciting as it is - is merely the prelude to what comes next.

Yup, the takeoff happens an hour and a half later.

As the 747 made the turn to line up on center-line, the copilot waved to the assembled crowd of lunatics (myself included) lined up on the fence. If you look closely, you can see the third officer taking our picture (window on the far left). No doubt he wanted to document for all his friends back in Holland that Sint Maarten had let all the inmates out of the local asylum to view the takeoff.

 The moment of truth had arrived. Time to grab a piece of the fence.

At this point you must be thinking "Bill, have you lost your mind?"  That's exactly what I was thinking, and believe me, I had serious doubts about whether or not this was a good idea. Looking at the engine cemented the thought.

Yup, this was a real stupid idea. Problem was - it was now too late. In order to get safely off the ground with such a short runway the pilot stands on the brakes and spools the engines up to full throttle. When all the engine readings come back normal and at 100%+, then, and only then, does he release the brakes.  If you let go of the fence now - you're going to get blown across the road, down the beach, and into the water.  The wind coming off those massive engines is around 150 mph at the fence line. It is simply unbelievably loud and painful. The exhaust picks up all the sand and stones and hurls them into your body. I had the bruises and cuts to prove it. Hurt like hell.  Scared the crap outta me too. But you can't let go. You have to hang on for dear life.  So I did! This is a great video of what its like

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP6Y3RHC7MY   Would I do it again?  No friggin' way. But, it was great fun (once) and a thrill I'll never forget.