Nat Geo Expedition in Puerto Rico - 3/21/10

I awoke to find my face caked in sweat and whatever oils were left from sunscreen -- yuck! I freshened up and had some breakfast -- poptart, banana, and diet coke (too hard to make coffee). I went topside, and everyone else fell asleep because they had been up real late. ERic joined me shortly after though. The conditions were a little rougher. The wind had picked up and the swells were probably 4-5 feet. I handled it okay for most of the day though. We pretty much just sailed all morning, and reached the drop spot around 11:30am. Eric, Mike, and I were all feeling slightly seasick. Mike especially because he spent a lot of time in the galley putting the exteriors on Cam #1. Eric was probably not as bad as Mike or me. It's really hard to find motivation to work when you have motion sickness, but I pushed through.

The first attempt to throw the cement buckets in the water failed epically. One of them broke off and sunk to Davy Jones' Locker. Fortunately, we still had bags of sand that Eric and I had filled on our prep day. So, after struggling to get the reflectors on and throwing up my breakfast, we finally tossed Cam #1 overboard. It was very stressful in the midst of the wind and swells but we got it off and I captured it, so in that sense, it was a success.

From there, we set sail for San Juan to get our part for Cam #2, and refill fuel and water tanks. The ride back was intense -- into the wind, 5-6 foot swells, and salty water splashing over us every 30 seconds. I set myself up in a nice reclined position, and dozed off most of the afternoon. We had sandwiches for dinner because it was too difficult to make anything else. They tasted great though, and I kept them down.

We arrived in San Juan around 2am. CK and I were the only ones awake at that point. We docked right next to a beautiful boat named the "Blue Guitar," which just so happened to be Eric Clapton's boat. Unfortunately, there were no sightings of Mr. Clapton himself. I assume he was in the city. Shortly after CK and I laid down to sleep on deck, we got kicked out of our spot by the La Rumba party boat. Apparently we were in their spot. So, we found a new spot and finally crashed.