Curacao to Culebra, Puerto Rico via Bonaire
11 December 2008 | Culebra
Jane, warm and sunny
We are now in Culebra one of the Spanish Virgin Islands just off Puerto Rico.
Our trip from Bonaire took four days instead of the normal three as the wind was against us being N to NNE the whole way!! We logged 714 miles and averaged 7.43 knots per hour, which we were very pleased with especially as the wind averaged around 15 knots with a sea swell between 1 - 3 meters. As the crow flies the trip should have been approx. 400 miles!! Of course within a day of our arrival the wind changed to E to NE, still we had a fun trip and most important got Adrian to Puerto Rico in time for his flight on 9 December!! He was an amazing crew and it was a lot of fun having him on board, it was sad to see him go.
Culebra is delightful. Although we have only been here a few days we love it. The town is small with one bank, two grocery shops, a few bars/restaurants, shops, etc.. The locals are very friendly, although must do not speak much English, so we are looking forward to learning some more Spanish!!
We are anchored in the inlet while we clean up the boat, do five weeks of laundry and try to finish off some jobs. Plan to join some friends who are at the mooring buoys, behind the reef at the entrance, tomorrow. They are having a drinks party on board so look forward to meeting some new cruisers then.
Saturday and Sunday the island is busier with people coming from the mainland for the weekend. On Saturday night they have a drum band that are supposed to be amazing and not to be missed, so we are looking forward to that (never ones to miss a party!) .
They have a ferry that goes to the mainland three times a day, taking just over an hour, so we have decided to take that rather than Ta-b to go and get some items from West Marine. We have decided to stay here for a while, but will be in the BVI's on the 28th for a girlfriends birthday and to pick up our friends Jim and Wendy who are coming to visit us. We like it here so much that we are thinking of returning with them for a while. We want to explore more of the area and feel they would really enjoy it. The BVI's are very expensive and crowded we have heard, and the USVI's are also normally busy (although in this climate we will see). Talking of climate, it is sunny but much cooler here and not so humid - phew!!
Internet is not great here, hope to get this on the blog with pictures. Will add more pictures when I can. Enjoy, we look forward to comments - if you read this please leave one for us. Thanks