The Spanish Virgins

Neither of us had ever before been to these islands, formerly called the Passage Islands, by boat or by air. They are small; Culebra has 3500 people and Vieques, 11,000. They are part of the “nation" of Puerto Rico, and that big island is what these islanders call the mainland.

Our passage from Great St. James off eastern St. Thomas, to Ensenada Honda (deep cove), Culebra, had very variable winds and hence a slow pace. Our course was west and the winds were from the east, but with variations.  They began from our starboard quarter and light, pushing us at about four knots. At one point, for five minutes they died absolutely before they came up on our starboard quarter, with resulting gybe. And they went back to starboard, and built to about ten knots relative, with periods of minutes at 18 knots. It was 23 miles and took five hours.

We passed this cruise ship, port to port; notice her bow wake, though she is slowing down to enter Charlotte Amelie.

We also passed Sail Rock, 120 feet high, in the middle of nowhere, which I remember from my navy days.

From 12 miles away, it looks like a sloop, but the human eye can focus in on things that the camera can’t capture, so we don’t have a picture of it from that range.

We anchored in Ensenada Honda, about 300 yards from the town’s dinghy docks, and
I went to look for US Customs to check in to Puerto Rico and it was a fifteen minute walk around the cove to the airport, where I waited about 15 minutes for the Customs officers to get back from what they were doing. They filled out the forms, on their computer based on my answers to their questions so I told them “Yes” about Alphie and Witty because I’m a terrible liar. As to their next question, about the cats’ papers, I said I could get them from the boat and that they were fully vetted, extremely healthy, and would not be leaving the boat. This satisfied them on that point. They asked about garbage and told me there is an authorized burning site about a ½ hour bus ride inland from one of the ports we plan to visit in Puerto Rico. I wondered, silently, how the other passengers on that bus would like it if we brought along large plastic bags of by then extremely old and smelly garbage.  They were very polite and explained the fear of importation of a bug that has infected mangos. I said we did not have any because they are not ripe yet. In the end, I accidentally left our passports on their desk and ten minutes later they drove up to me while I was walking back and gave them to me. They get high grades from me for courtesy and efficiency.

These islands have an interesting 20^th century resulting from their use by the US Navy for target practice.  Here is a rusted tank on what the native’s call one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean, Flamenco Beach:

And here is a tee shirt I bought, showing the tank and flamingos, flying in military formation over the beach:

The artist told me that the military had ruined Culebra but also “saved” it, because the existence of unexploded ordinance, while leaving the land safe for most uses, makes the island unsuitable for large scale building of high rise structures. There is a lot of resentment among the residents against the US.  Vieques’ weekly free 5” x 8” glossy tourist magazine has editorials detailing protest rallys and a spate of crimes.  

When we rounded the eastern tip of Vieques,

we noticed that it is uninhabited; and were later told that some folks are employed, at good pay, to locate and remove unexploded ordinance. So I'm not sure...maybe the ordinance protects against high rises?

We found a very substantial community of transported Norte Americanos, attracted by the laid back atmosphere, low cost of living (except for groceries) and climate. One of Culebra’s centers is the Public Library or as it is called there...Biblioteca Communidad,

supported by donations of books, computers, a coffee machine, and the labor of volunteers. Lauren, who lives on his 25 foot Cape Dory anchored in the Ensenada, rows to work in his dinghy to operate the library one day a week. He is quite knowledgeable about the collection, which is mostly English language books, but has small collections in several other languages. We used their wifi which is free to use and also donated.

Another such center of gathering of the gringos is the Friday morning produce market, all imported on a truck on the ferry from mainland Puerto Rico, with much variety and good quality. Because Luis will sell no veggies before his truck is fully unloaded, the waiting customers, including me, are enlisted as volunteer unloaders.

Here is beautiful and uncrowded Flamenco beach, with food kiosks in the middle (where I had another local beer, Meddalion), a resort ($110 per night for a double with kitchen) toward this end and a campground ($10 per night) toward the far end.

One has to go out about 40 yards to get chest deep with several one foot high sand ridges as you go out. No rocks and no shells, just pure yellow sand.
 There is a canal, suitable only for dinghys, which connects Ensenada Honda, near the docks, to the sea at the west side of the island. 

The land is less than ½ mile wide here, with the main ferry dock from Fajardo, PR at other, western, ocean side (but most of the fellow tourists we met at the beach had flown in for the day in tiny two or possibly four passenger airplanes that have to swoop dive to get to the tiny airport runway.) The one road over the canal is at the Bay side and has a lifting platform drawbridge, painted white and orange, which would still be too low for our mast if raised and which, we were told, had not been raised of 15 years. This is the view from the dinghy in the canal, with a few of the boats in the Ensenada visible under the bridge.

 Looking out the main entrance from the Ensenada to the Caribbean in the morning light.

We dined one night at Susie’s, on delicious, beautifully served food including mixed seafood cerviche and “island mash”: mashed potato, yucca, cassava and one other native island root starch.  The indoor part has the bar and several tables and the outdoor seating which we enjoyed, we realized next day, is the driveway of the gas station by day.

 Can you read the sign on this next store, so emblematic of the calm attitude here?

The people were very friendly and there are several other beaches and anchorages that we did not visit but after three nights it was time to move on to Vieques, sailing south to that island’s eastern tip on a gentle but fast port reach under sunny skies (“My favorite sail so far” said Ilene) and then west, a total of 24 miles. We had thought to stay in Ensenada Sun Bay, which looks like a big beautiful beach lined bay (think Orchard Beach in N.Y), but went a mile further and entered between Punta de Tierra and Cayo Real, off the little tourist town of Esperanza in 10 feet of water.  On this eastern side of its harbor, Puerto Real, we were one of two boats, while on the western side of the harbor, divided by a three foot deep sand bar, were about 15 cruising boats.  On the town's Embarcadero, we dined on Puerto Rican specialties (pastellilos of chicken, pork and conch, at La Nasa (the lobster trap) a roadside place where dinner for two cost $19.

There are also several places that look like they serve up a “fine dining” experience here as well, and gift shops, dive shops and a few of the island’s small hotels.

Then came our night time (no photos) wet kayaking tour on Puerto Mosquito, just east of Ensenada Sun Bay and not navigable (with only three feet of depth at its entrance). It is .3 x .6 miles in size and bioluminescent: having an extremely high concentration of light emitting tiny organisms. When you dip your paddle or hand in the water, they get startled and glow in the dark. Many fish swim in this bay and they too glow in the dark when disturbed, emitting zig zags of neon light as they swim away. We were one of four couples who took a ride in a van driven by Moses. He equipped us with life vests and paddles, led us into our “sit on top” kayaks, wore a red flashlight on the back of his head to guide us around the bay and told us about the bioluminescence and about some of the constellations and planets in the dark sky.  It was a spectacular vision, being a moonless night, and Moses pointed to the stars, planets and galaxies with his million watt flashlight as if it was a lazer on the planetarium ceiling and named many of them.  It was a great experience.
ILENE's anchor light, at the top of her mast, is lighted at dusk.

During the rather calm night there was a disturbing roll and we noticed that we had dragged about 100 feet so we picked up anchor, circled around Cayo Real, below, and anchored on its more popular western side, to the right.
The other disturbing feature of the night was not be solved by this ½ mile relocation:  When I asked the proprietor of La Nasa (He maintains an apartment four blocks from our house in New York where he lives 4 months a year) how late the music would last and expressed displeasure with his 2 AM answer, he and several other customers said with a smile: “This is Puerto Rico!” And the next night the music lasted until after 4 am!  But at least, the music was mostly tenors crooning romantic ballads accompanied by acoustic guitar, as compared to baritone DJs screaming guttural curse words accompanied by a back beat.

We visited Esperanza’s small archeological museum and Lene asked a woman who was driving to the island's capital, Isabel  Segundo, for a lift. She lives here seven months a year and near Denver in the summer. She dropped us about half a mile from the old Fortress. Its museum was regrettably closed but not its views of Puerto Rico in the background under the arch,
and Culebra behind Ilene, below.

There we met Ann and Ulla. Ann, with her husband, charter a 46 foot Beneteau, "Caribbean Lady" (anngmones@aol.com) Ulla operates amazingcharters.com, a business that matches people who would like to go on a charter vacation (with crew or bareboat) to available charterers. They gave us a tour of the capital area and dropped us at Coconuts for lunch. We made it to the big ferry dock in time to catch the incoming and hence a taxi waiting there for our trip back from Isabelle II to the boat at Esperanza.