Puerto Rico

We sailed from St. Thomas to Culebra, which is a Spanish island that falls under Puerto Rico. We arrived around 3pm and anchored in the Ensenada Fullados. When we left St. Thomas, customs and immigration said we did not need to check out as Puerto Rico, and its surrounding islands, were under U.S. Territory, however; when we phoned customs upon arrival, they said all passengers needed to report to the airport to check in. Here is a little interesting piece of information for cruisers whose boats are non-US registered: the customs officer explained to us that Puerto Rico is separated into 4 zones (north, east, south, and west) and because we are a South African flagged ship, we need to recheck in, if we move between zones (What a pain!). Another interesting tidbit is that because we came from the U.S. Virgin Islands, we had to pay a $36 check in fee, compared to a $19 fee if we came from a foreign port. He explained that coming from a normal tax area like the BVI is cheaper than U.S. ports because they add tax and St Thomas is deemed duty free. . . or something like that. But the annoying fact is that the check in fee is $36 and the check out fee is $37, so it would cost us $73 if we moved to a new zone. So we are currently checked into Puerto Rico’s eastern zone, which includes the islands of Culebra and Vieques, and the Puerto Rican port of Fajardo.

Military Tank

We stayed in the same bay in Culebra for a few days as the weather was not so great, no one wanted to go overboard for a swim though due to all the upside down jellyfish we could see floating past the boat! When the weather cleared we sailed around to the Northern part of Culebra and anchored in front of Flamenco Beach. What a stunning beach! It is ranked the #6 beach in the world, and well, you can see why. We took our dinghy onto the beach and walked to the point where 2 US navy tanks were abandoned when the U.S. military left the island in 1975 – a reminder of when the US navy used the island as a gunnery range. They were all rusted, but every so often a new layer of graffiti gets added to them, making them a piece of artwork on a stunning canvas. As we walked back to the dinghy, we stopped and bought some sorbet from a man with his ice-cream trolley. The little old man spoke no English and our Spanish is limited to hello, thank you and goodbye. So with much hand gestures and pointing at pictures we were successful in each getting some amazing sorbet. Very good value for money - $2.50 for a sugarcone and 4 scoops of sorbet (makes you want to eat 3 cones!) – and very delicious! Well worth it if you ever find yourself in this corner of the woods, we each had a cone with a mixture of coconut and strawberry sorbet (the coconut was my favourite). There were other flavours too such as pineapple, passionfruit, and soursop. We got back on the dinghy and lifted anchor. We sailed around to Melones Beach – in the turtle sanctuary area – where we picked up a bouy for the night.

Flamenco Beach

The following morning, we snorkeled around Melones Beach, where we saw filefish, trumpet fish, a peacock flounder, and the highlight – a nurse shark, the biggest one we have seen yet. We moved the boat around and picked up a bouy by the Luis Pena Cay Nature Reserve. We had lunch here and went snorkeling again, where we saw a spotted eagle ray. We moved to the ferry dock and anchored there for the night. We had dinner at the dinghy dock restaurant. My mom ordered the whole strawberry grouper and well, she literally got the whole fish! Besides the appearance, it actually tasted pretty good.  We had great fun feeding the resident Tarpons the left- overs. We left the next morning and sailed to Vieques.

We picked up a bouy in Esperanza and arranged to go on a tour to the world’s number one bioluminescent bay – Mosquito Bay. It is illegal for anyone to go to this bay without a licensed tour guide and it is also illegal to swim in this bay. The number one threat to the bay is humans, and therefore it is greatly protected. We had heard from numerous people that in the past week and a half of us arriving here, that 10 people have had their dinghy engines taken. So my dad decided to stay on the boat and my mom and I went at 7:30 on a tour to Mosquito Bay. We got into our 2-man see-through kayak (I highly recommend doing this in a see-through bottom kayak) and set out into the bay with our guide and 2 other kayaks. It was amazing. The see-through bottom kayak looked as if it were speckled with stars. Every stroke of the paddle would make the water light up. We were allowed to put our hands in the water and watch is light up as we swished our fingers around. It was truly marvelous. It was too dark for any pictures, but if you look up mosquito bay, you will see other people’s pictures. The following night my dad went on the tour and my mom and I guarded our dinghy.

Overgrown road

We decided to rent a car and do a little island tour. We waited 45 minutes to get fetched from Esperanza to be taken to the car hire place. We rented the Jeep and my dad was peeved that we didn’t have a spare tyre. The lady told us that if we have a puncture, they charge us $10 dollars to drive to us and change the wheel. Needless to say, as we are getting close to our first destination, we got a flat tyre. . . and waited for  30 minutes for the car company to come change the tyre (take note that the island is really small, so 30 minutes is a long time). We then decided that we needed to pick what we most wanted to do, as it was already 12pm at this point. So we decided to go see the sugar mill ruins and the military bunker’s. . . well lets just say after a whole lot of bundu bashing we didn’t get there either. The map was very inaccurate as there were many more roads than were indicated. We ended up going down roads that were so overgrown it looked like nobody had driven down them in years. Eventually we gave up and went to go see the 375 year old tree. The tree was spectacular. We decided it was time for lunch so we picked a restaurant on the map and went to it, only to discover that it was under renovation. So we ended up going next door to subway. From here we decided to go snorkeling in the national park area. As we drove through the gate my mom saw a sign that said visitor centre closes at 4pm, it was currently 3pm. So we drove to the beach we wanted, got our snorkel gear on and started swimming out. The water was so murky we couldn’t see the ground below us. We weren’t even 5 minutes out when my dad was calling us to come back because of time. We drove back and saw another sign that said the park closes at 6:30pm and it was just the information centre that closed at 4. . . what a disaster. Anyway we ended up going for a cocktail and a snack before calling it a day.

375 year old tree

Boat wreck

We were now on our way to Puerto Rico. We anchored off the coast of Fajardo for the night. In the morning, my dad and I went to a few marinas to check them out (the 2 we went to were terrible and did not cater for catamarans at all). While in the dinghy, we noticed a whole bunch of debris floating towards our boat, it ended up being a whole wooden cupboard that was broken up and various other objects that had broken loose from the wreck infront of us. We towed it all away from the boat but decided we needed to get outta here before something hits us. We ended up taking our boat into Puerto del Rey marina, the largest marina in the Caribbean with 1400 boat slips. It was very expensive, $175 a night, but the facilities and services were great. Our boat was about a kilometer and a half away from the bathrooms and marina office but luckily there were golf carts that came and fetched us whenever we called for them. We had planned to do 3 days of island touring so we wanted our boat locked up and secure while we were gone.

We rented a car and decided that we would go to the El Yunque Rainforest. How spectacular! This is the only rainforest in any U.S territory. We got lost a few times getting there (this was a trend over our three day tour as the roads and map were very confusing) so we arrived late. We decided we wanted to go to La Mina Falls so we drove there and hiked alongside a river until we got to the falls. It was very busy at the falls with people swimming. It was amazing, but I would advise going during the week when it is less crowded (we went on a Friday afternoon). We went to a lookout tower after the falls but it was closed already. We headed back to the marina for the night.

The next day we decided to go walk around old San Juan for the day. After getting lost numerous times, we finally parked the car and set on our way. The first stop was a little coffee place called café Cuatro Sombras. The coffee was made from local Puerto Rican beans. My parents both had sandwiches that they said were delicious, and I tried their guava bread, which was also good. From here we walked around the streets, and went in some of the shops. I got some shaved ice that was covered in coconut syrup. . . which was absolutely delicious! There are carts all over old San Juan selling this. We walked to the main fort known as El Morro. It was really quite something. There was a massive green lawn where people were sitting and flying kites. From the edge of the fort you could see the old San Juan graveyard. You could see the ocean for miles from every point on the fort. . . you could see how this fort could be a stronghold. From here we walked to La Barrachina for lunch, the place that claims to have invented the Pina Colada. I ordered a Pina Colada and the Puerto Rican tasting plate and was not impressed with either. So after this we decided to leave. We stopped by a cigar shop to get some Puerto Rican cigars for some friends and then headed back to the Marina for the night.

Christ Chapel

Old San Juan graveyard

Our last day of touring, we drove over 2 hours to the Arecibo area to go see the caves. We went to the Camuy Caves first . . . the third largest underground cave system in the world. We waited 40 minutes for our number to be called before heading to the caves. The cave we went into was spectacular . . . we had never seen anything like it before. Words cannot describe it so I took a few pictures for you to see. It was well worth the long drive and we were so glad we decided to do it. Our only complaint is that after the tour, we sat waiting for an hour until the trolley came to fetch us and take us back to the main area. At his time it was already 3:30pm and so much of the day was gone. I really wanted to go see the window cave (cueva ventana) so we raced over there in hopes they would still be open. We arrived at 4:03pm so we missed the 4 o’clock tour but they luckily still had a tour left, but only at 5. So we bought out tickets and waited until 5. We started off going through one cave (although more accurately called a cavern because it had 2 entrances and a cave only has one). It made us sad to see how people vandalize and graffiti all over the caves. The cave has ancient drawings by Taino Indians and right next to that people writing their names and such. But we carried on and went down into the second cave, the window cave. It was super dark so we were all given flashlights, we followed our guide to a big room and he told us to turn off our torches. He turned on a special light that wasn’t too bright for the bats eyes and shone it at the ceiling. There were thousands of bands hanging off the ceiling of the cave. We carried on from here to what was known as the window in the cave. OMG. It was truly unlike anything you have seen before (there is a picture for you to see). You could see out into the whole valley. From here we raced back to the car as it was already 6:30pm and we had a 2 hour drive back to the marina. Luckily, our drive back was the first time that we never got lost!

The window in the cave

Today we are checking out of Puerto Rico and then heading over to St. Thomas as my boyfriend, Travis, flies in on Thursday and then from there we go to the BVI, specifically, Tortola as my sister also arrives on Thursday, but in the evening.  We can celebrate a belated 20^th birthday with Rebecca for the 28^th of June. Jangles is going to be a full boat for a while!