Puerto Rico - Everybody Salsa

As we made our way eastward along Puerto Rico's south coast, we had 7 different anchorages: Boqueron, Cabo Rojo, Ensenada, Ponce, Caja de Muertos, Salinas and Puerto Patillas, over a period of 9 days.
Our observations of Puerto Rico were limited, however a couple of things did catch our attention. One item was the use of wrought iron everywhere - every gate, every fence, every window. Puerto Rican's love wrought iron - this much we know. Wrought iron aside we found the multi-coloured, brightly painted houses very pretty. Another observation we noted was the love of dance - salsa dance. We shopped at a J.C. Penny in the mall in Ponce (first mall we've seen since Florida). In the ladies wear department there was a selection of hundreds of dresses. Most of them were short lenght, sun-dress fasion, many low cut with swing skirts. To me they looked like dresses for dancing. The fitting room had a long line of young women (all attired in shorts) waiting to try on the dresses - everybody salsa.
We took advantage of the availability of goods in this U.S. territory to replace some of Sea Star's equipment that has found it's way into the sea along the way, as well as re-provision our food supplies and once again replace our camera.
The engine problems that we first encountered in the Mona Passage continue to plague us. Barry's repair efforts revealed a plugged delivery valve. We are now using bio-cide as we feel the hot, humid weather is causing algea to grow in our fuel tank.
As we progressed eastward the landscape became more mountainous and lush. The east coast is home to America's only tropical rain forest.
Puerto Rico is an island of natural bounty. It seemed that every tree we saw was either full of beautiful flower blooms or laden with fruit. Mangos were in season while we were there. The south coast shore-line is laced with reefs and fishermen can be seen harvesting the bounty there as well.
We enjoyed our time amongst the very generous, kind and friendly Puerto Ricans.