No Cash, No Splash

After our amazing dinner at Joe's Stone Crab, we headed to Puerto Rico where mofongo is king. Me and the Big Guy love us some mofongo, but Haney Buffet (Jimmy's brother, aka our First Mate) had never eaten it so we took him to the best mofongo joint we knew and introduced him to Puerto Rico's signature dish. 

Mofongo-Creole style, with shrimp

But this was no vacation, we were there to work and it was time to put the old girl back in the water. Hey, I'm not talkin' about me...I am referring to Pisces, our catamaran.
     She summered rather well, sitting there on the hard (that's boat talk for "on dry land") and looked pretty dang good when we boarded her. With the exception of a few live-aboard tree frogs that we are still finding and some mutant mildew, you could barely tell she had been through a couple of hurricanes. 

New bottom paint, wash job, she cleans up pretty well. 
Again, I am NOT talking about me.

We rented this "pet friendly" (understatement), pretty fabulous house while in PR, that we barely got to hang out at. Three dogs (plus ours), at least five cats and one giant, hairy spider lived there with us. 

This is "Fang"

The cat below terrorized Elvis. It would stand on his leash so he couldn't go anywhere.

  We thought it was funny. Elvis did not.

Here is the spider.  Elvis thought it was funny that The Big Guy couldn't kill it with a broom. We did not.

After a few days of working on her we were ready to splash and dash. Somebody named "Reuben" showed up with his really big lift thing and charged us $987520476329 cash, to pick her up and put her in the water. 

It didn't hurt her sex appeal that I had brand new salon cushions custom made. They are beautiful, but then they should be...they cost me $57632893624520 dollars, or thereabouts.
For another measly $398765902 I also had a new bed made for the dogs that  matches, but do you think they sleep on it? Nooooo, they prefer our pillows. 

FINALLY we ready to take to the seas and head to St. Thomas.

The Big Guy, Haney Buffet, Gracie and I then had a beautiful day of sailing. Elvis...not so much. He got sea sick and puked but luckily I had a motion sickness patch on hand to put behind his ear.

 

SO...we are here, all settled in and ready for some guests. 

Who wants to be first?

Haney Buffet relaxing after a hard day of work

Puerto Rico is all about the mofongo. I should be ashamed...I cook with plantains quite often on the boat, but have never made mofongo so don't have my own recipe to share. I've found this one but now that I know what's in it I will most likely keep eating it but will never make it. Pork rinds...really? I never thought of pork rinds as an ingredient and it's something I just don't keep on hand.  Click here for the recipe.

This is the lobster mofongo that we had one night.

You couldn't even taste the pork rinds...really.