The Spanish Virgin Islands consist of Culebra and Vieques, and a number of smaller cays, all belonging to Puerto Rico. In comparison to the better known U.S. and BVI, they are unspoiled by tourism and offer wonderful snorkeling and beach opportunities. Isla de Culebra, 20 miles from Fajarda, Puerto Rico, is where we came to recharge our personal batteries after the post passage cleanup. (We didn’t travel inland or sail to other ports on Puerto Rico, because we were at the eastern end of the island and our travels for the next few months will take us further east. We plan to visit Vieques and go ashore in P.R. and visit historic San Juan on our return voyage.)

Culebra has miles and miles of remote little coves dotted with mooring balls, ringed with narrow white sand beaches and carpeted with reefs. The mooring balls protect the reefs from anchors, offer secure places to tie up, and are free. Our first stop was Carlos Rosario Beach where we spent 4 days, snorkelling at our leisure a couple of times a day and relaxing in the cockpit. For a while we were the only boat there, and even on the weekend there were only 3 others. It’s almost like having a private or semi-private beach! The whole bay is dotted with reef, and we could snorkel right off the boat in different directions and see different things every time. The reef is amazing, we saw strange and wonderful types of coral as well as numerous fish, and I'm really happy with my underwater camera. I’m going to have to get a book on coral, because there was an unbelievable variety! Ralph was lucky… he spotted a sea turtle, which is a rare occurrence even though the island is a natural habitat and the area we were in is the only protected underwater area of the U.S. I loved the snorkeling, and Ralph taught me how to dive down and then blow the water out of my snorkel when I resurface. (I’ve always been afraid to try that.) I wear contact lenses with my snorkel mask, and what a miracle it is to be able to see clearly underwater!

We also hiked a trail across the hills to the absolutely gorgeous white sand Flamenco Beach, which is where the tourists go and the campground is. There were lots of colourful stalls selling a variety of local foods, but we weren’t able to sample anything because the hydro was out. We decided we prefer our own private beach.

We could spend months sailing around Culebra visiting different coves and reefs, but have come into Ensanada Honda, the inlet where the town of Dewey is, because it’s very protected here and we are expecting squalls to blow through tonight. (The other advantage is that we can pick up internet and a phone signal to be in touch with home, which is always a treat.) On Martin Luther King Day the streets of Dewey were practically deserted, but today there were cars and people everywhere. At The Dinghy Dock restaurant, we were not only able to fill our water jugs for 25 cents a gallon and lug them out to fill Altona’s tanks, it’s also the place cruisers and locals gather for happy hour. We met a lovely couple from Chicago who have relocated permanently to a little house in the mountains on Puerto Rico where they spend the hurricane season, and the rest of the time they cruise the islands. They spend a lot of time on Culebra and showed us where the best snorkeling spots are. Last night we went out to dinner at Mamacita’s, a really nice little restaurant with some of the best ribs we’ve tasted. Mamacita’s is right on the little canal that connects to a cove on the south side of the island, and we simply motored Vorck (our dinghy) up to the wall of the open air restaurant, tied up and sat right down at a waterside table.

Tomorrow we’ll hunker down and do some boat tasks: I have small repairs to do on the sail, replacing the vinyl windows in the dodger so we can actually see out of them, flags to make for the next islands we’re planning to visit, and planning to do so our friends will know where to fly in to meet us for March break. Life sure is tough!