Spanish Virgins and Fajardo

footprints on the sand of Culebrita

 

We sailed on a beam reach for Culebrita, an uninhabited and eastern most island of the Spanish Virgins.  Reaching the island at about 1400 we had time to explore.  We took a mooring in Turtle cove and set off to snorkel the reef. 

 

 

 

 

Leslie and Lila on pricess floats

The Lighthouse

 

Leslie in the Lighthouse

 Friends on Yachtsman’s Dream invited us for drinks and Leslie and Lela enjoyed the “princess” floats.  Next day we hiked the island and at the top explored the abandoned light house.  Beautiful building, too bad it has been left to fall apart. 

Capt.Sebastian sets up the resort

 

Carl enters the Jacuzzi

 We found a path to a beach on the west side of the island and found Capt. Sebastian setting up a mini resort.  Reminded us of China and how whole shops came off a bicycle, he sets up tents, food, and umbrella’s all out of a small boat. 



Leslie in the "Hot Tub"

 

We hiked to the east side of the island and discovered a “hot” tub and Jacuzzi.  The Jacuzzi was rough so Carl went in and I took pic’s.

Waves enter the Jacuzzi

 

Flamingo Bay Beach

 

The Dighy Dock Resturant

From Culebrita it is a short sail to Culebra and anchoring in Ensenada Honda.  We took the dingy to the Dingy Dock Restaurant, tied up and went exploring knowing there was a cold beer waiting after a hot hike.  A very laid back island with friendly helpful people.  The reefs around this island are some of the most healthy beautiful we’ve seen.  We hiked 3 miles out to Flamingo Bay, a famous beach which on Sat. is very crowded. 

 

Carl with his cold beer



This is the area that was bombed from 1936 to 1976.  Two colorful tanks still remain.  One is careful not to touch anything strange under water as there are still unexploded ordinates here.  The beach has little food kiosks with oversized beer.  You can set up a permanent tent site also and the beach has shower and bathroom facilities.  

 



Bird at the beach area

 





waterfront walk at Vieques

Interesting fence in Vieques

With a weather window we sailed to Vieques to check out the bio bay.  Unfortunately it was so dark we could not get pictures, I got to swim in the bay and I was covered in glowing organisms but no pic from our camera. We anchored in Esperanza and explored the lovely waterfront.

Leslie in Fajardo town square

Church in Fajardo

Sailing back to Culebra on a broad reach we decided to anchor and take the ferry to Fajardo the next day—it is only a dollar.  This gave us the opportunity to go to West Marine and Wal Mart.  The architecture around the town square is very European with fountains and church the central focus. 

 

Capt. Pat at Mother's Day Party

Mayor of Culebra and wife

 Back on Culebra more snorkeling and enjoying and hiking.  On Mother’s Day Leslie was invited to the island wide Mother’s Day party hosted by the Mayor and his wife.  Free food, drinks, music for dancing and raffles made for a fun Sunday esp. since spouses were invited also.  We met Capt. Pat a wonderful women who has made her home on Culebra for 26 yrs.  her deceased husband Capt. Jack and she sailed there via Venezuela and started many day sailing enterprises. 

 

We spent a lovely three weeks in this area but the weather window opened and we heard a party was in the making so we bid good-bye and sailed back to the USVI.

Leslie on Pirate Island

 

Maho Eco Resort Closes: End of an Era

Leslie in front of a "tent"

tents and walkways

The Maho Bay Eco resort started in 1976 with a vision of a resort which is made of recyclable materials and whose buildings blend in and have a minimum impact on the flora and fauna. So the resort is about 100 tent platforms raised above the ground with canvas cabins on them.

Beach snack bar

George and his water sports rental

 They are connected by a series of elevated wooden walkways and stairs to each other and other areas like the beach, water sports, bathrooms, showers, restaurant, activity centers and stores.

The restaurant

Dinning Room

General store with $2 cold beers

Leslie at the craft gallery

Glass blowing studio

Clay studio

The resort also had a vision of ecological activities to offer its guests. As a result each week had a schedule of activities like hiking trips, sailing, snorkel and scuba trips, kayaking, daily yoga, glass blowing, clay work, paper making, tie dyeing, fabric batik and others.

The dive boat and small sail boat

Down to the beach

The resort seen from the bay

The beach

Reception and activites center

Turtle with Remora at Maho

The uniqueness of the resort has been copied by other resorts, but the Maho Eco Resort still remained the most sought after. It served a couple of generations of ecology minded guests and it is a shame that it is no more.

I was fortunate to go on the last scuba trip they offered, and Leslie and I ate the last meal the restaurant served as we watched a slide show on the many happy guests the resort had served over the years. I also drank the last beer sold at the little store as we took a last walk around the resort. That night we drank a toast to the end of an era, the end of the Maho Bay Eco Resort.

Sunset from the Maho Eco Lodge "dinning room"

Strange things happen when you cruise. When we went to go to bed in the starboard cabin we were hit by the smell of dead fish! We smelled around and it seemed to be coming from the porthole. So we shut the porthole and went to bed, but it still reeked of dead fish! About 5 in the morning Leslie starts rummaging around and soon finds a dead fish under our mattress!  A couple days ago Leslie said she found the porthole screen ripped down. She thought it was odd but saw no cause and so repaired it. Apparently this fish, about an 8” Jack, had jumped through our screen and landed by the mattress and worked its way under it before dying. There it had lain for two days starting to decay. We got rid of the fish and stripped the mattress and put vinegar on the wood and mattress and put it up to air and the bedding in bleach and vinegar water before going back to the port side for some more sleep. Upon getting up we worked further to eliminate the odor, but it looks like we will sleep in the port cabin for a few days. Unfortunatly in the early hour and our haste to get rid of the smelly fish, we forgot to get a picture. Oh well!

Carnival

Every island in the Caribbean has a carnival each year which consists of parades of mostly women in bikini costumes and huge sound trucks going down the streets along with a concert and vendor area. Carnival appears to have started in Italy as the festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat” as it was the day before lent and people gave up meat for lent. It spread thoughout Europe and over to the new world. After slave freedom it was started in Trinidad and Tabigo to celebrate freedom and spread from there. If one was very organized and did his research, one could schedule a cruise to hit each island at carnival. Neither of us are that way, or maybe we have become mature so it isn’t that important.

One of the boats

vendor booths on the harbor

 

However, we were in St. Thomas during their carnival. Carnival lasts a week and we missed many events. We did try to see the boat races the day the O’Connors left. We were told they started at 10 AM so we arrived at Charlotte Amalie’s harbor shore at 1 PM and they hadn’t started yet.



a practice run

Boats " waiting to race"

The harbor front was packed with people and food and drink stands, as we waited various boats roared by in practice runs, but no race.

 

 

 

water jet boards

Amazing board

We had some drinks and food and a couple people on water jets showed up to demonstrate how to fly in the air with these jets. Finally about 3 PM we started to leave and a couple of orange markers were towed into the harbor. We waited and eventually two jet skis took off around the course. I don’t know who won, or even where the finish line was. 

There the jet skis go!

Leslie talks to the police about the fire

 

We gave up and caught the ferry back to St. John’s only to find that the block by Woody’s had had a fire and lots of smoke damage.  Lucky, Woody’s only closed for the day.

Our new kayak

boater's beach party

Our inflatable kayaks arrived and we were back in St. Thomas to receive them, some things actually arrive in reasonable time so we tried one out paddling around the bay. That night we had our own carnival beach party with other boats anchored in Brewers Bay.

kid's steel drum band

The health center got into it

 

Later in the week was a kids parade, J’ouvert, an adult all night dance that started at 4 AM, and the adult parade on Sat. It started around 10 AM and when we got there at noon it was in full swing! The theme was a Caribbean celebration and the costumes were really great. About 4 PM it looked like the parade was over, we did not realize that it was just a very long break, so we left for dinner only to see the rest on the parade on TV! 



 

 

 

 

 

Leslie will not be left out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The king and queen

Suzanne and Leslie with the bird

 

The Carnival town was in a big parking lot with vendor plywood shops now lining 3 sides with a big stage in the front. It was definitely quite a week, ending with fireworks over the harbor.  They made all the boats in the cove by the Coast Guard station re-anchor for the fireworks which lit up the night sky for a colorful culmination of Carnival.