Culebra

Sailing from St Thomas to Puerto Rico is an easy day sail and we got into Ensenada Honda (main anchorage in Culebra) with plenty of daylight left. A huge lagoon, Ensenada Honda is home to loads of local boats and free moorings. Not the prettiest of places we have seen but there are plenty of spaces to spread out away from anyone else or anchor right near the town as you so wish. Once the boat was secured, we jumped into the dinghy and set off in search of customs. We had read somewhere that there was a guy sometimes available to clear boats in located in the main town of Dewey (locals call it Culebra) which is near the dinghy dock. A boiling hot day we walked a mile or so and couldn't find anything that resembled a customs hut but we did find a police man who called his mate and sent us on our way to the airport. And there was our first indicator of how friendly these Puerto Ricans are, whether they can speak English or not they will go out of their way to help you.

Stepping into the blasting air conditioning, we spent a few minutes waiting for the sweat to stop dripping from our foreheads, unsticking our clothes from our bodies (nice), and located the customs official. Boy was this guy bored, with it being hurricane season and a very small airport that only caters for internal island hops he didn't see many people each day and it showed. We must have been there for 2 hours chatting away to this guy who told us everything we ever needed to know about Culebra including where to find the best Pastelas, cheapest food, best bar etc – ringing each one for us on a map. We were a little nervous coming into Puerto Rico on a boat as we had heard all sorts of horror stories about $1000 fines for hazardous waste disposal etc. Please don't believe any of it, we made sure we had eaten all of our fruit, veg, seeds, meats and beans before we came and we didn't have anyone board our boat and he just told us if we did have anything off the banned import list, to throw it overboard.

Example of the Puerto Rican culture

Formalities out of the way we hunted down a grocery store and filled our basket with meat. Thinking about it, we dined extremely well the whole time we were in Puerto Rico. Filling ourselves with meats and American produce (not the doughnuts though). I call Dylan the chicken monster and he certainly came out to play, devouring chicken wings and carcasses complete with Frank's buffalo sauce in one sitting. Hopefully he has put on a bit of weight!

At the edge of the lagoon is a bar /restaurant called Dinghy Dock where you can tie your dinghy up to the table you are going to sit at, unfortunately service on the day we were there left much to be desired but it did give us plenty of time to check out the local sea life. As we sat eating our fish quesadillas right below us was a school of tarpon circling us. Most unnerving to see these beasts so close but gave us something to take our mind off the 45 minute wait for our drinks.

The top place to see in Culebra is Flamenco Beach, rated one of the world's best by Conde Nast. We walked there from the dinghy dock, slightly underestimating the distance so by the time we arrived the first thing we did was jump in the sea. Its a very long pretty beach with white sand and clear water...but it is packed with people so for me, its not the best I have ever been to but it definitely gets 10/10 for scenery. There were families everywhere, set up for the day with wind breakers and portable BBQs cooking up meat, the smells wafting out to us in the water. Dylan decided to teach me how to body surf and after a few times of loosing my bikini top and bashing my head on the bottom we called it a day and went in search of food. Behind the beach is a cluster of stalls serving all sorts of local dishes and drinks, we tried out a Puerto Rican version of a pasty stuffed with fish and it was great, so much so we had a second one. Not wanting to do the walk back and with Dylan complaining of a 'walking rash' we found a guy wearing a bright yellow shirt with 'TRANSPORT' emblazoned across it. Turns out here in Culebra, taxis and buses are the same thing so we paid him $3 each to take us back in his bus to the dinghy dock. Money well spent whilst we watched the dry dirt roads whizz by in the comfort of an air conditioned vehicle.

Another anchorage we tried out whilst here was Ensenada Dakity and we'd recommend that more than the main lagoon. Its a small area with free mooring balls tucked in behind a reef that looks out to the open ocean. No facilities around here and you would need to dinghy the length of the lagoon to get ashore but its prettier. Unfortunately on this side of the island the water is really murky so snorkelling was no fun. We stayed only a few days to stock up then headed to the main land...