Just having returned from 17 days. 9 days were in the Spanish VI with our charter guests Roger & Lisa from Chicago. (who are now our newest friends) We all had a great time.

Here is the report:

Thurs. Oct 19th Leave JFK 7am arrive at Cattitude at 1:15pm a record! Caribbean Cellars has already delivered. Bobby’s delivers provisions at 3:30pm (not our most successful provisioning with Bobby’s – numerous errors and missing items) Bobby’s driver takes Paul to Customs in Road Town and Paul clears us out. Get the final missing items and we are off the dock by 5pm. We head over to Little Harbor for the evening. Spend the rest of the night unpacking and getting ready for our guests Lisa & Roger on Friday.

Fri. Oct 20th Early rise and head over to STJ to clear in to the USVI. Ferry has just left, so we try right up at the dock. As usual the Customs lady looks annoyed to see us and hands us papers and say go outside and fill them out. We do and when we return she asks 3 different times the name of the boat…. (Helllllooooo, it is right there on the papers in front of her) Glad to get it over and we head to STT. I peel potatoes the entire way to make Potato Salad. We pick up at ball at CYOA as we have some business to take care of with them. They are gracious enough to allow us to stay overnight. We meet up with Candace & Tom (Nutmeg from TTOL) for lunch. Have a really nice lunch together at Hook, Line & Sinker and then we bring them out to Cattitude for a tour of the “estate”. Candace really went out of her way and checked all over to try to find me beach chairs. Unfortunately, Christmas decorations have taken over the “beach supplies” areas of most stores. About 3pm Candace & Tom leave and we conduct our business with CYOA and tour their operation. 4pm comes and so do our guests. Paul dinks in to get them and we decide to spend the night on the CYOA mooring since the winds are kicking up and are out of the SW, so most anchorages we would want to go to are bad choices. We make cheeseburgers tonite and serve them with the homemade potato salad.

Sat. Oct 21st Up really early and make everyone bagels & cream cheese (to go) since we want to get an early start on the voyage over to Culebra. Along the way we set up the fishing rod and troll our way across. We do get a hit and Roger reels in a nice fish. We are not sure what it is and decide to throw it back. After returning the fish to the sea, we discover that it was probably a Spanish Mackerel. (Book says it is the tastiest of all mackerels. Too late, it is gone. The seas are pretty calm and we make really good time. We decide that we will stop first at Isla Norte on the north side of Culebra. Drop the hook in about 20 feet of water and we dink in to “walk the beach”. Upon arriving at shore we are bombarded with “Private Property - Property of the SPVI Investment Group” signs every several hundred feet. There were no signs last time we were there in Dec05. Times they are a changing-and not for the better. We however, ignore the signs and walk the beach anyway.
After leaving Isla Norte we head to Bahia Tortuga on Culebrita for the night. It is a perfect crescent moon beach well protected by several reefs. We see several turtles during our stay (it is a turtle nesting area and protected). There are “DRNA” mooring balls free for the use. There are about 15 boats in the bay most have dropped a bow anchor and hooked up their stern to a mooring ball. Guess we will follow suit, and it works great. Our stern is facing the breeze. The DRNA boat shows up and is just cruising around the bay. We are concerned as we have not yet cleared in. They yell at a couple of other boats for having anchors on the beach. It is a restricted area and no anchors, or fires on the beach. Meanwhile we swim, we drink, Lisa swims to the beach, we drink…..you get the idea. I wonder why there are so many boats (as last time in 05 we saw very few) but then I realize that it is Sat. in Oct and the PR navy (but there was NO loud music coming from and of them) is still boating. A number of the boats are very large and we expect the anchorage to be fairly busy that night. To our surprise, most boats leave by 5:30pm. We have sundowner cocktails. Lisa and Roger have been designated camera persons as they have a very sweet Canon camera with an amazing lens. They do their job well and shoot great shots all day and then the lovely sunset.
When the sun is completely down we grill Lemon Chicken for dinner. Lisa plans to stay outside at night to watch the shooting stars from an asteroid event. Rest of us to bed!

Sun Oct 22nd Early to rise. Cattitude Caramel Toast for breakfast with Cantaloupe and Oranges slices. I then prepare a big batch of Chicken Salad from the extra chicken from the night before. As we are having breakfast here come the boats that left last night. Guess they are the “dock puppy” kind of boaters. After breakfast we head west to Playa Flamenco on Culebra’s north shore. (We weren’t able to visit here in 05 because of the north swell) Wow, it is a perfect HUGE beach. There is a rusty tank on the northwest shore. Leftovers from the US war games, I guess. The Southwest shore is a local public beach, and we dink over to check things out. We head first to the tank to see it up close and personal. Still some tire tread on the tracks. Not quite sure how long it has been there but someone must have done a paint job on it to “decorate” it. We notice that there are some tents along the beach up in the brush. We walk up to a road to discover that it is also a camp ground. I am not sure who is allowed to camp there and/or how much it costs, but no better way to visit Culebra. There are numerous areas of campgrounds marked by different colored fences. Blue, green, pink, yellow, orange. Cisterns of water are on the road and I am assuming it is for use by the campers as each area has its own color-coded to match. We continue down the road and come to the entrance to the "park”. There are a number of food vendors and a trailer of “beach attire, souvenirs, etc.” The proprietor is Franklyn from NYC. Small world. He had just returned from a shopping trip to NY so he is well stocked. We find a few things that we are interested in, but we brought no money. Who would thunk this was here. Lisa wants “local” food so off we go to Cattitude to get $$$$. (So much for chicken salad) We return to shore with money and the garbage to deliver to a garbage can we had found. We order from two different vendors. Lisa has a beef empanada with rice & beans. I have a shrimp empanada. Paul has barbequed shark on a skewer with fried plantains. Roger has the chicken on a skewer. Food is delicious. And cheap. The whole meal was under $20. Then off to Franklyn’s to shop. I had found a lovely pink fish sarong but couldn’t decide. Lisa bought the same sarong in blue. Did buy some swim goggles and Lisa bought a reusable under water camera. Lisa found some gifts for friends and family and then we bought some ice to take back to the boat. We normally don’t need to buy ice (as we make our own) but we had 2 coolers and with the extreme heat it was hard to keep up. We had one cooler filled with jugs of fresh brewed Iced Tea, Lemonade, Painkillers, and Rum Punch. The other cooler was filled with Caribs, Red Stripes, Tonic, Cokes, & waters. We needed a second cooler this trip because of the quantity of food we needed to carry as there would be very few places to eat out or reprovision.
We can’t stay overnite here because of its openness, so we head out and head to Bahia Respesito. This is a very pretty anchorage on the west end. Again there are DRNA moorings and we pick one up for the night. Tonite we will have grilled Tuna with fresh Wasabi cream, corn on the cob and baked sweet potatoes. Lisa again takes sunset pics and vows to watch the shooting stars again.

Mon. Oct 23rd. This morning we move to a further north mooring closer to the snorkeling area. The 4 of us jump and are snorkeling a very pretty reef. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of fish, but some very nice reefs. While snorkeling, here comes the DRNA boat. This time they yell to us. We don’t have a dive flag up while we are snorkeling. Never head of using a dive flag for snorkeling, but ok we will try to get one. After snorkeling we head around the point to the south and anchor in Bahia de Sardinas. We dink on in to the dock. Find a dive shop first thing. Guess we can buy our dive flag there. Mission accomplished. We walk the town. Check out some of the shops. Find Mamacita’s Restaurant and decide to have lunch there. It is right on the canal that separates the 2 land masses. We have an enjoyable lunch while watching the resident iguanas. Huge iguanas! After lunch we continue walking along the canal. The canal has a bridge that was built 30 years ago. It opened once for its celebration. When they couldn’t get it to go back down for 3 days, they decided to never raise it again. Go figure. The “famous” cart is still on the other side of the bridge. Painted on the side, it says it all. “Open Some Days, Closed Others”. We walk to the local grocery store “Comida Milka”. Pick up a few missing items and Lisa gets more film for the underwater camera. We walk back to the dinghy and take a ride thru the canal to Ensenada Honda. We tool around the bay on a sightseeing cruise and then head back to Cattitude. We pick up the hook and head to Bahia Tamarinda off Cayo Luis Pena. We are completely alone again. More sundowners and sunset pictures and then a light dinner of Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato salad with sundried tomato basil dressing. (Since we had a big lunch) and then sleep.

Tues. Oct 24th. We are up early and we head south east to Vieques. We decide to continue doing a counter clockwise cruise as the winds are still out of the south and we figure that when they do change, the north side will be uncomfortable. Our first stop will be Bahia Icacos. It is a very nice little bay behind a huge reef and a little cay protecting the waters. Pretty unmarked as to how to get in, but we use our Cruising Guide (2004 edition as that is the last one that has the SPVI in it) We also have full charts, Don Streets, Spanish VI’s, and another SPVI book. We read all the specifics very carefully to be sure that we know the way in. Little difficult, but we get in and anchor in about 12 feet of water off the beach. We all put on our snorkel gear and head to the cay. Roger and I turn back when we find that there are very few fish. Upon getting back to Cattitude, we see a truck on the beach and someone with a bullhorn hailing us. Roger and I lay low because Paul & Lisa are still snorkeling and there is no way to get them back. When we don’t reply, the guy gets out of the truck and trudges his way down the beach to where we are and hails us again. “Cattitude, you must weigh anchor and leave the anchorage immediately.” He then tells us to get on the VHF. Again on the VFH he tells us that this area is off limits as the Navy is conducted clean up activities of unexploded ordnances. He proceeds to tell us that we may not enter any area east of a line north to south of the large red roofed building on top of the hill. I do ask him what areas we can go to. A little while later he hails us again and proceeds to tell us exactly what beaches and bays we can enter. He is very polite and it is very nice of him to make this extra effort. He explains that they are cleaning up so that in the near future all the beaches will be available again to the cruisers. We weigh anchor and worm our way back out of the bay. We head west passing Punta Diablo. Punta Diablo is the furthest south point of the Bermuda Triangle. (Interesting information) Well we didn’t disappear to I guess all is ok. We stop at Isla Caballo Blanco for lunch. This is a tiny white sand islet north of Isabel Segundo. Paul, Lisa, & Roger snorkel to the reef and I finally get a nap in my hammock. Again not many fish. I truly think that all the fish have gone on “Holiday”. Also, a lot of the reefs have very little color. Guess they still haven’t recovered from the bleaching of prior years.
In Isabel Segundo we take a walk thru town. We do a little shopping and I find my beach chairs. Perfect. We decide that tomorrow we will come back to town and walk up to the fort at the top of the hill. We will do it early when it is not so very hot. We find a grocery store and replenish the ice again. $1.25 for a large bag. Sweet! We buy 5 bags and carry them back in the two soft coolers that we have brought along. It is so very, very, hot out. Back on Cattitude and we grill a steak with mushrooms and onions for dinner and baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. Dark Chocolate covered Biscotti for dessert. Early to bed again. I think the heat is just knocking us out each day.
Wed. Oct 23rd. Up early again Sausage Cheddar Omelets for breakfast with English Muffins. We head back to town to get up the hill before the sun gets too high. The fort opens at approx 8:30. We arrive by 8:45 and it is actually open. The view from the fort is amazing. The fort houses a collection of artifacts that have been found dating back to early times on Vieques. We also watch a video about the fight between the US Navy and the locals who wanted the Navy gone. Sad story. Such a beautiful island and now there is high unemployment, high cancer rates and from what we are hearing a crime situation.
After the fort, we head back to the grocery store one more time to buy another 5 bags of ice. We used yesterday’s ice to chill down a couple of cases of beer. For $7.50, well worth doing. Lisa and Roger stop one more time at a gift shop. We meet at the grocery store and head back to Cattitude. We are ready to pull up anchor and there is “trouble” below. We can’t get the anchor up. We try, and try, and try. No way. Luckily, Lisa can free dive pretty deep and follows the anchor chain down to discover that it is wrapped around a rock and caught hard in a crevice. She attempts to pull it free, but because of the pull from Cattitude she can’t get it free. Paul finally gets in the dink and pulls Cattitude and the anchor chain so that she can get it free. It took us about an hour to it get free. So with that said. Anchor on the north side of the anchorage if there is room (there wasn’t for us) the south side has a bunch of rocks and coral heads. Off to the west end of Vieques.
We head to Punta Arenas a gorgeous palm tree lined beach (Green Beach in Navy days). Again there are mooring balls. Gotta love it. We hook ourselves up and then dink in for a walk on the beach. We can actually walk over the rise and view northeast all the way to Culebra and St. Thomas. We are only a few miles southeast of Puerto Rico. We watch the sunset and the lights of PR. Another outstanding night. Dinner of the remainder of the steak and mushrooms and onions and more of the potato salad. (That steak was so big that it fed the four of us two full dinners.)

Thurs. Oct 26. Breakfast again of Cattitude Caramel Toast. This time made with chopped apples on the bottom. Yummy! We head around to the south side of Vieques. We pull into Esperanza, the “other” city on Vieques. We walk the Malecon and shop along the way. We walk into the Vieques Conservation & Historical Society and I see the 2 women there working on QuickBooks Point of Sale. (Little aside, I am a Point of Sale Reseller for Intuit and here I am watching these two trying to figure out how to use it) Lisa and I both find some very interesting gifts while the boys look at the historical stuff. They also have an aquarium here, but it was under renovations. They just put the fish back in the sea and when it is done, they will catch more. It takes about 30 minutes for these 2 ladies to ring up our sales. Everything is handwritten first. So much for technology.
We continue along the way to the next shop. The owner of this one is on the phone with Intuit because she has a problem with her Point of Sale. This is getting weird. We finally get to the florist and upon entering he remembers me from 2 years ago. He mailed my Christmas cards for me in 2005. (Guess what…..he too is using Point of Sale) I threaten Paul that I just might move down here and start a brand new business just supporting POS in Vieques. Unfortunately, the florist tells us that crime is on the rise and he is actually leaving because of it. Lisa continues shopping and talking to the florist and Paul, Roger, & I head outside. The boys wait in chairs at the store and I walk across the street to look out at the water. Wow. I scream for Paul to come NOW. There is a waterspout about a half mile away right in the direction we had just come from. Paul & Roger run over and we get some video and pictures of it. It lasts about 20 minutes. Roger heads back to the shop and Paul & I continue walking. It now starts raining. We hole up under a concrete kiosk type building (the kind you would wait under for a bus). There is a man sitting in a chair (probably his own) just watching the world go by. It rains, and rains, and rains, harder. We are a prisoner of the rain. We finally decide to just make a run for it back to the shop. We arrive quite damp and we all decide to head back to the boat while it is not raining quite so hard. Of course, by the time we walk to the dinghy it starts again and we have a soggy ride back to Cattitude. Upon arriving at Cattitude it is just pouring again. So much for grilling hamburgers. I decide to fry up some hot dogs in the galley. We have lunch of hot dogs, baked beans, and potato chips. The All American Meal. When lunch is over so is the rain and it is a perfectly beautiful afternoon.
We haul up anchor and head east. We pass Sun Bay with its perfect palm-lined white crescent beach. Also cruise past Mosquito Bay (the main Bioluminescent bay). The next bay is Puerto Ferro or Barracuda Bay. This bay is also a bio bay. We worm our way in and we are the only boat there. After dropping anchor we take a dinghy ride around the bay to explore. There are little channels that go deep back into the bay. We find that the spit of land that comes down into the bay has a dirt road on it and is marked “boat ramp” pretty odd. After exploring, it is cocktail hour.
The sun is starting to go down and we all decide that since it is getting dark so fast that we will take our “bio swim” before dinner. The moon is now in its 1st qtr so it is still pretty dark. Paul jumps in. The water lights up. We all head in and it is just amazing. The more we splash the brighter it gets. You peddle your legs in the water like riding a bicycle and the water below you is bright green. As you lift your arms out, a thousand little drops of light run down your arms. Your hair drips of liquid glowing droplets. It seems we just can’t get enough of it. The moon is getting brighter so we swim to the front of the boat to be in more darkness. It is unbelievable. Paul describes it as a giant lava light (you know, the one with the green blob in the bottom.) When the light gets warm the green lava just flows thru the tube.) Well that was us in the tube. Very cool.
After getting out and showering we make dinner. Grilled Mahi-Mahi with Mango Peach salsa, and Rice Pilaf. Again off to bed at the end of dinner.

Fri. Oct 27th. Early rising again. More Cattitude Caramel Toast for breakfast and today we will head around the east end of Vieques and back up to the east end of Culebra. (Making for a shorter trip back to STT on Sunday)
We head out of Puerto Ferro and past the old lighthouse and caves. There is too much swell to swim and snorkel the caves. We chose to pass on going into Ensenada Honda the huge bay that I spoke of in my trip report 2 years ago as there is not much there but a big bay and no beaches. We decide to go straight up to Bahia Almodovar on Culebra.
Paul is putting out the fishing line and I am steering. Uh oh! On the VHF radio again “Power boat heading east on the south side of Vieques switch to channel 11”. OK now what have we done. The voice over the radio says ‘take a course east 2 miles south of the island. 2 MILES. You gotta be kidding. It is sloppy out here as is. But no arguing, I head due south. Paul comes up to find out why I am “heading to St. Croix”? I tell him about the radio call and turn back east at the 2 mile limit. We come around the east end of Vieques and head NW to Culebra.
As we are heading into the channel between the Culebra reef and Culebra (towards Bahia Almodovar) we sight out first (and only) dolphin. He only stays with us a very short time. We head into the bay following the cruising guide directions to use the “Wedding Cake” house as the sight line. Inside the bay we follow it southeast and there are mooring right behind the reef. It is blowing pretty hard, but we are in perfectly flat water because of the protection of the reef. We pick up a mooring ball. Love having all these free balls that are in real good condition in the SPVI. Thank you DRNA. We are not there very long and a sport fish boat arrives. They drop anchor right behind the reef stern to the reef and go inside the cabin. We never see them again. (Goodnight I guess) We all jump in the water to snorkel the reef, but again no fish. After snorkeling and coming back to the boat, several other boats show up. Ooops it is now Friday afternoon in the SPVI. People heading out on their boats for the weekend. It is crowded. There are at least 3 other boats in the entire bay. 

Sat. Oct 28th. Breakfast of Eggs Benedict and then we head to Culebrita. We decide to anchor off the south side of the island and check out the snorkeling there. The water is protected from the strong winds and waves and is picture perfect azure. We head in towards the beach. No fish, but some pretty reef sections. We then head to the west end of Culebrita to another snorkeling spot. We have lunch in the pretty spot and everyone snorkels, but I decide to do the hammock stint again instead. (Love my hammock). After weighing up anchor we head north east around the point and back into Bahia Tortuga for the afternoon and evening. We are the only boat. The north swell is pretty big and with winds out of the SE the waves are confused but large. Guess there won’t be any boats joining us tonite. We do the “drop anchor” and stern pickup a ball routine. There is a decent swell in the bay, but not dangerous. We all decide to go swimming. It is fun “riding” the swell into shore. There is no rip current, just swells heading to shore and then back out again. We spend a couple of hours just playing in the water.
Well, tonite is our last night. We have Grilled Jerk Shrimp with Tortellini Alfredo with Bacon & Peas. We drink up a LOT of the cocktails. We can’t have leftovers. And off to bed early as we want to get a real early start tomorrow because of the sea conditions.

Sun Oct 29th. We get up at first light. I reheat the last of the Cattitude Caramel Toast and then we will head east to STT. The ride isn’t too bad. A little wet from spray but Cattitude surprises us as usual by giving such a comfortable ride. All precautions we took to secure things were probably a waste. (But you never know) We arrive in STT in 3 hrs. We drop anchor off the dinghy dock by the old fort in Charlotte Amalie. Lisa & I want to do some shopping before they have to head to the airport for their flight back. We dink in, but there are no cruise ships in and it is Sunday morning. Not much open. There are, however, a bunch of “Hawkers” trying to take us to the few places that were open. They were pretty annoying. (They must get a piece of the action for bringing in people.) Lisa and Roger have lunch at the shore restaurant while Paul & I head to Kmart in the valley by safari bus. (I needed to pick up some meds for my eyes. Must have gotten an infection in the bio bay……everyone else was ok, just me). We get back to CA in less than an hour and meet back up with Roger & Lisa for the last few shops to visit.
We head to Crown Bay to fuel up and grab a few more provisions for Paul & me. Here we will drop off Lisa & Roger so they can grab a cab to the airport. We say a sad goodbye. For 4 people who have never met, we got along so well. I guess this is one of the reasons that Paul & I enjoy doing private charters. We are always making more new friends, not just new customers.
Paul & I decide that because of the forecast we will not be heading to STX so we decide to fuel up in STT. The price of fuel in STT is $3.17 per gal. for diesel. Once again, we are amazed as to how little fuel Cattitude uses. We ran the genset much more that we ever have because of the heat, humidity, and the mosquitoes. We went from Road Town to STJ, to CA, to Culebrita, circumnavigated Culebra, then circumnavigated Vieques, back to Culebra and Culebrita and to STT. The total fuel was around 200 gals. (A lot of which was for the genset.) I will do a fuel analysis when I return home. Last trip we averaged 1.72 gals per hr on the 2 engines and .5 gals per hr on the genset. Can't wait to see what the averages were for this trip.

Next part of report will be the following days in STJ & White Bay