Culebra/Culebrita

With the wind blowing from the south, we detour to Bahia Tortuga on Culebrita, a nature preserve.  The anchorage is full of weekend powerboats from Puerto Rico. The shell-shaped beach has lovely, fine white sand and true to its name, the bay is full of turtles. Tom immediately recognizes the boat moored next to us with a retired couple and their dog, Storm.  We learn that they have been sailing in the Virgins for over 30 years and they are a wealth of information about the best anchorages and snorkeling in these parts.  I snorkel the nearby reef, but it’s been devastated by algae. Nonetheless, I see my first cuttlefish, a huge scrawled filefish and find a live pen shell in the seagrass  (Once, I determine that it is alive, I show the kids and promptly return it to its grassy home).  Later, the kids and I find the largest sand dollar ever, nearly 8 inches across.

Sunday morning brings a hike to the northeast corner of the island to explore an area like the Baths. Our timing is poor as its low tide, but when it’s high, the surf creates a natural Jacuzzi. We enjoy watching the surf crash onto the rocks anyway. Then we scale the bluff, and the kids collect the hot pink fruit from the Turk’s cap cactus.  By 4, the weekenders all depart and only a handful of cruisers remain. As if to celebrate, the turtles begin to surface everywhere.  The next day, we snorkel on the south end of the island.  In contrast, here the reef is quite beautiful and filled with schools of tang and jacks.

En-route to Culebra, we pause at Cayo Luis to snorkel. It’s a good spot during the day, but too exposed to spend the night. The reef isn’t quite as nice, but the fish are plentiful and Zoe discovers a large orange and black surgeonfish. After passing the night at protected, but otherwise unremarkable anchorage, we head to Tamarindo, one of our favorite spots last time we came through. The swell is hitting us squarely, so we pause briefly just to snorkel. It’s better than we remember, filled with colorful pale yellow green (Venus) and purple (common) sea fans swaying rhythmically with the waves. There isn’t a large variety of fish, but we do see 5 trumpet fish and a school of over 100 jacks darts past. With the wind blowing onto the south shore we take this rare opportunity to anchor off Playa Flamenco, one of the Caribbean’s most stunning beaches. People take ferries from Puerto Rico to spend the day here. The wide beach is covered in fine, blindingly white sand. The water ranges from deep blue to a translucent turquoise near the shore and the waves are excellent for body surfing. We spend hours perfecting our technique. At 5pm, the beach empties leaving us alone in our private paradise. Remarkably, we are the only boat spending the night in this pristine spot. The next morning we head back to the deserted beach for another round of body surfing and stay until the sun, crowds and school work call us back to reality. Finally, it’s time to head to the hurricane hole for water (see “water, water everywhere”). 

During the entire time in Culebra, we’ve stayed in anchorages with barely another boat. But here in this mangrove-filled harbor the boats are stuffed in like sardines. It’s loud and dirty near shore. We are flummoxed. Why would someone chose to park in this bay day after day, (which I see as nothing more than a provisioning pitstop) when lovely, un-crowded moorings lay a short sail beyond the harbor? While the Spanish Virgins lack the infrastructure and cache of the ports in the rest of the Virgin Islands, we’ve found much to appreciate with free moorings, good snorkeling, pristine beaches and privacy.