Stops on the way

Ponce was next, the anchorage was full so we went in the marina, was a little expensive, but we had showers and that was nice. We rented a car and tried to find a place to store the boat over the summer. In Fallardo the answer was still no, but there was a place in Salinas that could do it. We tried very hard to find downtown Ponce, but other than all the outskirts we could not get in the right direction and only things like this happen.

Coffin Island, very nice anchorage, swimming and snorkeling.

Salinas, the place where we have now decided to store the boat during the summer, to get to downtown you had to walk a few miles, so we visited only the stores and restaurants in the near of the harbor

Cayos Caribes-Boca del Infierno, here we anchored between the mangroves and waited for the wind to go down because we wanted to go from here direct to Vieques. We left on March 25 as soon as the sun came up and arrived at Punta Arenas around 3:30. The beginning went very well, then we had a few hours of high waves and wind, but the last hours were very much okay and were happy to have conquered another hurdle. Magic had arrived a few hours earlier and had a bottle of champagne cold to celebrate our arrival in the Virgin Islands; we did so at sundown on the beach. It felt really good!! (till we got chased away by a lot of sand flies.

Esperanza was a cute little town, I bought a book on Vieques at the historical Society and that was an eye-opener, the military have really behaved very badly on this island, practically until now

Puerto Ferro FANTASTIC, we had of course read all the books about the luminescent bays Puerto Mosquito and Puerto Ferro and wanted to explore the phenomenon. At 4 a.m. when the moon went down we dipped into the water and the water lighted up and sparkles stayed on your arms when out of the water. Like tiny fireflies. Because the entrance to these bays is very narrow the bio luminescent algae cannot leave the bay and gather in large quantities so that they become agitated when the water is stirred. It was a great experience.

Ensenada Honda. This bay is bordered by mangroves and not good for snorkeling so we left after the wind calmed down and went to Salinas del Sur. Until 2003 this bay was a navy training area for bombing and we were not allowed to go onshore because of the presence of unexploded bombs. Jacques pulled the boat close to shore to clean the bottoms of a thick layer of barnacles and other growth. He saw a projectile sticking vertically into the sand and this one was clearly a bomb that didn’t explode.

After a couple of days we sailed to the Island of Culebra and went to town to buy groceries and go online to download the latest weather forecasts.

Ria