We arrived in Salinas, Puerto Rico on February 14th, and met Jean that day. He had opened Sal Pa’ Dentro a mere ten months before, but it was already a well-established cruiser’s bar, complete with dozens of flags adorning the ceiling and walls signed by captains & crew from far-flung nations, a simple, delicious & inexpensively priced menu, cheap, cold beer and free WiFi.

I was reluctant to call this post “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem” (it reminds me of an annoying Kenny Chesney song we’re having a hard time dodging here in the BVI – if you can believe it!), but that is the vibe at Jean’s bar. In fact, he has a big sign at his dinghy dock saying the same in Spanish, and doesn’t think too much of wearing shoes himself.

So after only ten months (now eleven, I guess) Sal Pa’ Dentro has all the ingredients of a great cruiser’s bar. But what made it special for us was Jean and his wife Ana. An experienced captain himself, Jean encouraged us to bring our charts so he could show us some good anchorages nearby.

We took him up on the offer and brought our charts on our next visit. He showed us a great place at Cayo Barque, which we never would have attempted otherwise because the chart said there was only 0-2 feet. It was so nice, in fact, we anchored there during both Wade & Kim’s and Ela & Andrew’s visits. We still have Jean’s yellow sticky-note where he tried to describe what we’d see going into the anchorage.

He also gave us great advice on navigating the remainder of the south coast of PR, as well as the best places to anchor in Vieques and Culebra this time of year. He never steered us wrong, and we were grateful for his advice.

Ela & Andrew brought us an extra NSC burgee, so we signed it and added it to Jean’s growing collection.

Jean said to put the year on it, but to leave space to add the year of our next visit. So we did – 2013 is in the upper left, with lots of room below it for the future.

Long live Sal Pa’ Dentro!