In Bruce Van Sant’s book – “The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages
South” he mentions the Caribbean two step – two steps forward and one step
back. This occurs mainly in shallow areas (anything less than 30m) when the
wind creates a chop on the water over the normal swell. When the swell and the
chop join forces, they meet up and it appears as if you are actually going
backwards. It literally kills your speed. We experienced this on our “sail” to
Culebra from Fajardo on Wednesday. More details later……
Sunday morning we thought we could venture out to El Yunque
National Forest but once again the heavens opened. We looked at the weather for
the following week and decided that Monday would not be a very good day to
leave Sunbay Marine and head east to Culebra as the winds would be strong and
on the nose – it wouldn’t be fun!
was about a 20 -25 mins walk so off we went. It was quite
beautiful!
The El Yunque National Forest is approximately 114sq-km and
was formally known as the Caribbean National Forest. It is the only tropical
rainforest within the U.S National Park system and it ranges in height from 9m
at its base to 1,077m at the top of Cerro El Torro. Various ecosystems are
found within the forest ranging from high mountain cloud forest and dwarf
forest on the highest slopes; (Information taken from the DK Eyewitness Travel
– Caribbean)
The visitors centre had many exhibitions with a variety of
information about the El Yunque Forest – the following information is from one
of the many displays.
“The Tainos believed that the god Yocahu lived in El Yunque.
Some people think that “yunque” comes from the Taino word “yuke” which means
mountain; others believe it derives from the Spanish word for anvil, El
Yunque’s distinctive shape from the north. African slaves called it “Furidi”
meaning “mountain in white cloud” in Yoruba language.”
There were some beautiful orchids, ferns, mosses and
mushrooms. See photos below.
There were extremely tall ferns which the Tainos Indians used
the hollow tree trunks to carry hot coals from one campsite to the next….. a bit of useless information…..
After our walk, we decided to go for a drive to see just how far up the mountain we could get – well not very far if you took the main road through the forest. We saw quite a few cars turning off down
another road so off we went to investigate.
It was a very narrow road* and you could see the effects of
the rain from the previous days but the water falls along the side of the road
were absolutely beautiful.
We stopped off to have a look at the main river that runs
through the forest and saw quite a few people swimming.
We were making our way back “home”, when we were stopped and told if we wanted to get
on to the main highway (PR3), we had to go another way through the forest and over the many hills. In the morning on our way to the forest we noticed that there were many trucks and people around this intersection. Now this intersection had been totally
closed and no one was allowed
through.
We were give two options, the 883 or the 886 or something or
other as I can’t quite remember – anyway so off we went.
We actually went along the same road* we had just been on, so
we had the opportunity to see the lovely waterfalls once again.
Of course Mel would take the more adventurous route…. It was
much more interesting than the route everyone else was taking but at times I
was concerned we wouldn’t be able to dodge the vegetation that was on the road
and it was much narrower than the other roads.
The road went up and down and around – the vegetation
changing all the time. It was quite beautiful despite me being a worry wart
that we may not see civilisation again.
We were going to leave Fajardo and Sunbay marina on Tuesday
but the wind was howling from the east so we spent another day at the
marina. I worked on some of the courtesy
flags we would need as we make our way down the Leeward and Windward Islands
and Mel worked on the water maker - which is now producing water for us. Thank
goodness!!!
Wednesday looked, from
the marina, to be a good day to head to Culebra …. Well how wrong can one get!!
What an awful sail!! Well we didn’t sail we motor-sailed and
even then we felt as if we were getting nowhere. Lesson learnt… if you are
doing the Caribbean two step, turn back and wait out for another day to sail.
What should have taken us 4 hours at the most took us 7 1/2 hours!!! I was constantly asking for some divine
intervention as I wished I could have run on water either back to Fajardo or to
Culebra. It was absolutely dreadful and I was petrified! Never again - I have
said to Mel otherwise he can find another sailing partner!! We analysed what we
did wrong – we didn’t interpret the weather forecast for this area correctly.
We are having to learn and adjust to a whole different weather pattern now that
we are approaching the Leeward Islands.
We arrived at the main harbour entrance (Ensenada Honda) of
Culebra and were grateful for the calm waters. We were anchored just off Dewey -
the town centre in Ensenada Honda by 3.00pm and collapsed – we were exhausted!
After a little snooze to refresh ourselves, we took the limo down and headed
for town to have a walk around and to get our land legs back.
There is a restaurant called the Dinghy Dock where we tied up
the dinghy, had a drink (some interesting characters around) then walked around
the town centre.
Culebra, like Vieques and 24 other isles, form part of the
Spanish Virgin archipelago surrounding Puerto Rico.
Culebra has a National Wildlife refuge where there are many
rare wildlife species. Culebra also boasts having one of the best beaches in
the world – Playa (Beach) Flamenco.
It is believed Christopher Columbus (the first European) came
here in his second voyage in 1493. When the island was under Spanish
control it was inhabited by pirates, fishermen and sailors. Nowadays it is
inhabited by – to quote from “The Yachtsman’s Guide to the Virgin Islands” –
“the attitude is live-and-let-live, friendly, low keyed and reserved. There are
the usual harmless eccentrics who gravitate to islands, some zealous disciples
of the sixties back to earth life style and some of them delightfully uncategorized.”
While we were having our drink at the Dinghy Dock, we saw
quite a few of these characters - Long beards, hippy type attire. In fact we
were convinced one of these colourful and interesting characters was ZZ-Top
himself!
A bit of history… Culebra in 1902 was incorporated as part of
Vieques. President Theodore Roosevelt established the Culebra Naval
Reservation. In 1939, the US Navy used Culebra, along with Vieuqes, as a
gunnery and bombing practise site in preparation for their participation in
WWII. This continued after WWII.
In 1971, the Culebrans started a protest for the removal of
the US. Navy. This was known as the Navy- Culebran protests and it lasted four
years, until 1975, when the gunnery was moved to Vieques.
On the charts there are areas indicating where you are
advised not to do any trawling or anchoring as these are the areas where the
practise sites used to be.
Thursday we went into town and back to the Dinghy Dock for
dinner where the usual group of interesting looking people were gathered. The
Dinghy Docks serves great grouper and tuna.
Friday was when we planned to go to Playa
(Beach) Flamenco to see if it was as great as all the books were saying but not
before we had to deal with our stowaway!
When Mel got into the dinghy as he was going to take it to
shore, it jumped into the water, and floated/swam around our boat. When it
reached the back of the boat, it attempted to climb up the ladder as it was
quite exhausted from its “swim” around the boat. Mel moved the front of the dinghy
under it, so it could climb back onto the dinghy while he could get to the back
of the dinghy and start the engine to take it back to shore, which he did. Mel
said that as soon as he was quite close to the bushes, it jumped off the dinghy
and “ran” into them. Shame poor ugly thing!
We have never seen such a long expanse of stunning white
beach, with clear turquoise waters in all our travels and without sounding
smug, Mel and I have seen some beautiful beaches.
The temperature of the water was ideal – well for me, who
struggles to stay in the water for very long as I do get cold very quickly.
We stayed there for most of the day before riding back to
where we had tied up the dinghy and then back to the boat.
Saturday, we were tempted to go back to Playa Flamenco but
thought we would venture to another part of this lovely island.
Once again, we got the bikes out and cycled to Playa Melones
which forms part of the Nature reserve and where there is a huge turtle
breeding area.
The waters were stunning once again but the beach was very
small and there was hardly any sand, just dead coral.
Mel snorkelled and noticed that there had been lots of damage
done to the coral but there were signs of recovery. I read that the area had
once been used as target practice by the US.
We will be “checking out” of Puerto Rico Sunday morning (18th)
as we plan to make our way to the BVI’s the next day. We are not going to the
US Virgin Islands as the entry requirements for us are always an issue –
despite us having a US cruising permit etc. – there is always some red tape.
So here we are at the end of Week 22, anchored off the lovely
island of Culebra.
Sending lots of love to you all
Captain Mel and Admiral Caryn/xxx
