WOW, I'm on a roll...... I have further broken this down to 2 reports. This one "Part 3" is about Vieques, part 4 will be Culebra
Hope you enjoy!
Sun Dec 5 Early, early rise. Time to head to the Spanish Virgins. We head SW towards Vieques. This will turn out to be a very good decision (as during the next week the seas continue to build and the wind just keeps getting stronger, making for less than ideal sea conditions). 2 hours (running about 3000 rpms and doing 14 to 16knots with the sea pushing us on the starboard stern quarter…..still Cattitude handles it well, just watching to be sure that the dinghy on the davits doesn’t take on water) and we are rounding the SE tip of Vieques. Heading for Bahia del Sur. Seas quiet down, as we get closer to the south shore. We poke our nose in, there is a sport fishing boat at anchor.
We decide to continue on. Heading west we pull into Ensenada Honda. There are absolutely no aids to navigation, just written directions from the “Cruising the Spanish VI’s”. A long winding channel around the bay to the anchorage. We follow the directions to the letter, even though it would appear that you could just cut across this huge bay. Major rock spoils scattered all across the middle of the bay and along the south entrance. Settling in the far southeast corner we are surrounded by lush green landscape. There is NOTHING to indicate any human or animal population. Just the chirp of a few birds. We cannot see a house, building, boat, road, in any direction we look. Upon research, we find that this entire area from the SE point of Vieques to Mosquito Bay to the west was the US Navy’s “Camp Garcia”……reason for no development. It is now maintained by US Fish & Wildlife. Off to the far, far west up on the mountain miles away we can see a radio tower, the only visible indication of any inhabitation. It is the most pristine place we have every seen. We are so amazed that we call home to tell Ashley & my Mom. We take a dip and have lunch and then hang out for a few hours. I work on the trip report from the prior week.
Around 2pm we lift up hook to head to our overnight destination Puerto Ferro on our chart, but also known as Barracuda Bay on many maps. One of two Bioluminescence Bays on Vieques, the other being Mosquito Bay. Heading out we thread our way to the open waters south of Vieques. There is no room for error here as there is NoOne to help you if you get in trouble. There are also numerous reefs and rocks that need be taken into account as you travel. GPS, Charts. And Cruising Guides are all necessary. The GPS alone is not enough!
We are now in the area of Vieques that is named “Red Beach” by the US Navy. This is where the bombing and war games were held. We pull into Red Beach and Garcia, but decide it is not much and decide to continue on our way. We at one point “touched a rock” it scared the daylights out of us and after that we were overly cautious. We have never encountered so many reefs and rock areas. Coral head are numerous also.

As we head into Puerto Ferro (Barracuda Bay) again there are no aids to navigation and we being to understand that this is how this entire trip will be. A watchful eye to “read” the land formations to compare to the charts and some information from the Cruising Guide is all you have. The entrance to Puerto Ferro has 3 different versions, The GPS, the Chart & the Guide. After our “scare” I head to the bow to watch for hazards, Paul is at the helm calling out the depths as we go in. It gets a little scary as the depth goes down as low a 3.9 (We draw about that) We make it all the way in and to our surprise there is another boat tucked way in behind a spit of land that hides a small cove on the south east corner. We drop anchor in the middle of the bay in about 12 to 14 feet of water. Paul heads overboard with mask & fins to check the hull for damage from the rocks. He reports that we were lucky and that the keel in front of the prop on the starboard side had taken the hit and just had a scrape on the bottom. Whew! Love having a keel!
We spend the rest of the afternoon just limin’; we need major “Painkillers” to recover from the scare and we drink while watching a lone pelican diving for his dinner. A little while later another sailing Cat comes through the entrance and he is taking a course that is nothing like what the Charts and GPS say. He makes it in fine and we can only assume that he has done this many times before. (Note to self…..take his course when leaving). He anchors at the far southwest end of the bay and he is so far away that we can’t even see any signs of life on the boat.

The bay is beautiful and we watch the most amazing sunset. Soon it will be time to grill. As dusk begins to fall, our plans to grill die rather quickly as the mosquitoes come out in full force. I say bye to Paul (those darn things just love me and don’t bother Paul at all…guess you know who the “sweet” one is) and head inside, turn on the A/C, close all the hatches and rework the grill plan to cooking on the stove. Dinner inside is ok and after dark, TOTAL dark we venture out to look at the bioluminescence. Mosquitoes gone…yeah! Paul takes the boat hook and starts pulling it through the water. WOW…lights up like daylight. Paul decides to go in and the splash is a waterfall of light. I attempt to take some shots of the show with my camera, but it is way too dark out to get anything. Paul finally comes out with little light sparkles everywhere. Very cool. Had the weather not turned considerably cooler at night, I might have joined him, but didn’t (stupid on my part). A very calm night.
Mon am We wake up to another gorgeous day. After breakfast we pick up anchor and worm out way out of the bay following the route of the cat that came in late the afternoon before. Water was MUCH deeper and no bad experiences to report. On the way out we pass again an old Fort on the SW point. The coast below the fort is reported to have caves with great snorkeling (much like Norman Island), but the seas are too rough to drop hook and swim in. Would have loved to get a closer look at the old Fort and caves, but that was not an option.

We continue west on our adventure and come to Sun Bay. It is a huge palm tree lined bay with picnic tables and a beach building of some sort. I believe it is the public beach for the south side of the island. One trawler anchored in the bay…..Hey, there really are people cruising down here. No one at all on the beach. We know we have a lot of area to cover so we decide to move on to the first town. Esperanza.

We pass Cayo Tierra and to the west of it is a channel between Cayo Tierra and Cayo Afuera into the bay Puerto Real at Esperanza and we can see the town at the other end of the channel. The channel itself looks very narrow on the charts and we decide to pass on that channel and head in west of Cayo Afuera. Again, no markers. We find our way in and anchor north of the Cayo Tierra off the now deteriorating navy dock. We now must clear customs, as we will be heading for land. We had before our trip purchased an annual US Customs sticker via the Internet from US Customs and Immigration. ($25.00) for the sticker and it allows you to just call the Customs office by phone and give them all the boat and passenger info. The process takes about 30 minutes by phone (both Cingular and Sprint work in these islands) and the Customs agent is so wonderfully pleasant. (I find out that she actually flies into work on Vieques every day from PR. Monday to Friday job. So this was the first we could clear. (Even though we had cleared into US waters in Cruz Bay, St. John, you must clear again into Puerto Rico and its territories.) .) The sticker is a must for this trip; otherwise we would have had to land in Culebra, or the north side of Vieques to clear.

Now that we are cleared we drop the dink and head to “town”. Again, sadly, a lot of garbage, very, very few people. We walk the road and check out the few buildings. Mostly bars, and they were mostly closed. We tried to go to the Conservation Historical Trust, but also closed. We did check out a florist/gift shop that was open. Nice guy from Providence RI. He had been there about 7 years. Did whatever shopping we were to do in the Spanish VI’s and asked him where we could mail our (sand filled) Christmas cards. He said that he was going to the PO in Isabel Segunda that afternoon and he would take them for us. (Unfortunately, no Vieques postmark…..they don’t have a rubber stamp, bummer, they will have to have a PR postmark.) Walked the El Malecon and up the road. One other gift shop open. Very quiet. Time to head to our next stop.

After lunch we leave Puerto Real bay and we head towards ‘Green Beach” and Punta Arenas on the west coast of Vieques. The seas are getting rougher and the wind is picking up. Boat still handling it very well and once we make it around the SW point of Vieques, the seas ebb. “Green Beach” is beautiful, with the exception of the rusted out tanks on the beach. There are a few covered picnic tables, but virtually no one around. It too is a US Wildlife Preserve. Drop anchor and decide to do a little snorkeling and walk the beach before nightfall. While Paul is getting out the snorkel gear, I “catch” my toe on the window frame while walking along the gunnels. I think I may have broken the little toe and am in real pain. I put my foot in the water to try to ease the pain. I can move the toe, so now I am surmising that I probably sprained it. Great, just great…..another week of this trip and I am in PAIN. I do manage to get my flippers on and snorkel into the beach, where I hobble along. The snorkeling itself was interesting. A lot of military junk on the bottom, along with nice coral and white sand. Once onshore we walk as far at Punta Arenas and can see the north coast of Vieques. It is really beautiful here.
Cocktails and dinner, this nite dinner on the grill. There is virtually no place to eat ashore in any of the anchorages on Vieques south shore other than Esperanza. It turns out that I will spend the entire week cooking and we will also consume all the leftovers from the week before. We will never starve. Tortellini Alfredo, Chicken Quesidillas, Grilled Mahi-Mahi, Bacon cheese burgers, hot dogs, BLT’s in pita pockets, and our new favorite…chicken salad, bacon & lettuce in a wrap. We WILL eat ALL this food before we go home!
We are now, anchored in very open water. The wind from the northeast is blocked by the hills of Vieques and therefore the water is rather calm. The winds themselves are building considerably. The boat is pulling pretty hard on the anchor. We have a very good view of PR as we are only a few miles off the main coast. I comment to Paul that if we break anchor we will end up in southeast PR by morning.
After dinner we listen to the weather, it is not sounding good and between the wind and the north swell, we are concerned about the next leg of the trip. The forecast is for strong winds and rain. We will be rounding the NW point on Vieques north of the Escollo de Arenas (means TROUBLE) and heading to the north side of Vieques in open water. There we will visit Isabel Segunda, the Ferry Pier, North shore beach, etc. (this is the main area of population on the island).
We know that this leg of the trip we will be heading directly into this wind and weather and it will be VERY sloppy, if, hopefully, not frightening or even concerning. We have brought inflatable PFD’s from home and Paul gets them ready for this leg. I decide to pack an “overboard” bag. Passports, money, cameras, radios, portable VHF, jewelry, in double zip lock bags in a drawstring bad. We locate them at the lower station helm seat, the nearest safe area to where the inflatable life-raft is stored below. (This raft can always be retrieved, even if the boat flips as it has a hatch below the hull) The precautions make us feel better. We decide to hoist anchor at first light in the morning.
We both don’t sleep very well that night. The underlying fear of breaking anchor in the strong winds (with nothing to go bump until we “Hit” Puerto Rico) and the concern for the morning trip and my bum toe hurts like a !$%@##/.
Tues 5am We wake up long before first light and have coffee and breakfast. It is still very dark with darker yet clouds sweeping overhead. Occasion light rainshowers. Wind has not yet picked up. The anchorage is still calm.
7am we finally have enough light. We don’t want to head around Escollo de Arenas in the dark, as it is a very dangerous spoils area. There is actually one marker out there and we would like to be able to see it. It is darker longer than usual because of the heavy clouds. When we finally hoist anchor the sun is peaking thru breaks in the clouds over the land. We look west towards PR and it is not pretty. Hope the major “weather” is over there.
Heading out, the seas are not too bad…yet. We pass Punta Arenas and the seas grow to an uncomfortable slop. The wind is now blowing like a mother. I have the camera, but it is obvious that there will be no pictures today. Probably should have put the underwater housing on it. We have water hitting us on the bridge and with the wind it is chilly. We started out in bathing suits, but soon needed jackets. Paul (being the more surefooted one) heads downstairs to put the camera away and get our rain jackets. We are getting soaked. I feel better steering. I guess it is a control thing for me, and when he comes back I won’t give up the helm. We soon make the decision to skip the north side of Vieques and head northeast to Culebra and Cayo de Luis Pena. I give up the helm as I am the navigator and must start checking the charts for heading north while he steers.
We have it under control and within 2 hours we are coming up on Cayo de Luis Pena and the West side of Culebra.
It was a shame to miss the north side of Vieques, so I guess we will have to just do it again. Maybe we will in summer months when the wind is down and the waters warmer.

Here are the Vieques Pics from Part 3

Also check out THIS WEBSITE for great info and ariel pics of Vieques

OK on to part 4