Puerto Rico to Culebra

We never made it to Monkey Island as we diverted to Vieques because of wind and waves and decided to stay there an extra day instead. There was good snorkeling and it was calm and the monkeys will probably be there on our next go round. From Vieques we went into Puerto Del Ray which is the largest Marina in the Caribbean. They wheeled us around in golf carts whenever we asked and we had all the water we needed to give the boat a good bath.

We rendezvoused with Noel Carrasquillo to get our 16 packages of boat stuff we had ordered and we had a nice dinner with him and his daughter at the Marina restaurant. They came to the boat afterward and got a tour and Noel even came back the second night to bring homemade candied papaya from his Mom and other coconut and almond sweets.

The second day we rented a car and toured El Yunque, the only tropical rain forest in the United States National Forest System. The forest is located on the slopes of the Sierra de Luquillo Mountains in Puerto Rico, and encompasses 28,002 acres. El Toro, the highest mountain peak in the forest rises 3,537 ft above sea level. We hiked for almost an hour to see the La Mina Falls and Kim and Emily got wet while the captain took a few photos. There were the sounds of tree frogs and wild birds all around us as we made our way to the falls. Kim was fascinated by the tree snails that were everywhere.

We left the following day for Culebra and we found a nice anchorage and a nice town. The water is clearer here than Puerto Rico and we managed to snorkel two days in a row. We were greeted by nice vibrant healthy reef and quite a few fish. We swam with a hawksbill turtle for more than 5 minutes and a spotted eagle ray swam beneath us. Emily is getting better at snorkeling and was even doing a few surface dives down towards the reef.

We found a nice church ashore and enjoyed prayers in the town square and we were welcomed into the procession of palms down the streets to the church for mass. We also spent a day at Flamingo Beach that apparently is commonly ranked in the top 3 in the world. It was nice with powdery white sand, warm water and palm trees and we all enjoyed the scenery.

Tom