Puerto Rico – Herrick Home Page

The words “Puerto Rico” means “Rich Port” and originally related to the port and port city. “San Juan” was the name of the island.

Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, while the capital city was named Ciudad de Puerto Rico (“Rich Port City”).

Eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. Quite the switch!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 – Puerto Rico

As we motored along toward Puerto Rico, the ship scared up flying fish. The Masked Boobie and the Brown Boobie used this to help them get a free meal!

Brown Boobie got this one!

The Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. The Booby’s head and upper body (back) is covered in dark brown or black, with the remainder (belly) being a contrasting white. The juvenile form is gray-brown with darkening on the head, wings and tail. While these birds are typically silent, bird watchers have reported occasional sounds similar to grunting or quacking. Their beaks are quite sharp and contain many jagged edges. They have short wings and long, tapered tails. They also are spectacular divers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They mainly eat small fish or squid which gather in groups near the surface and may catch leaping fish while skimming the surface. We had fun photographing them! The Juvenile Brown Boobie is the darker one.

The Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae.

Beginning his dive……………………………………………splash and swim down

Up he pops, missed that time:

This time he got a flying fish!……………………………………………………………And then he tosses it!

Boobies hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater. They have a number of adaptations which enable them to do this:

they have no external nostrils, they are located inside the mouth instead;
they have air sacs in their face and chest under their skin which act like bubble wrapping, cushioning the impact with the water;
their eyes are positioned far enough forward on their face to give them binocular vision, allowing them to judge distances accurately.

Boobies can dive from a height of 100 feet, achieving speeds of 60 mph as they strike the water, enabling them to catch fish much deeper than most airborne birds.

At 11:30 we went in for the Collectors Lunch and received two more clay tiles!

The pilot boat came out to guide us in by the fort in Puerto Rico.

The town of San Juan. The city/port was originally called the Port of Rico – Puerto Rico but the ambiguous use of San Juan Bautista and Puerto Rico for both the city and the island led to a reversal in practical use by most inhabitants: by 1746, the name for the city (Puerto Rico) had become that of the entire island, while the name for the Island (San Juan Bautista) had become the name for the city.