A Frequently Asked Question: What's Our Favourite Island?

This is a question that gets asked not just by non-cruisers but by cruisers alike so we've been chatting about it recently and wracking our brains to try to pick one.  The conclusion we came to is that often the island we are currently on is our "favourite" but really it comes down to what we love about each island that makes them so unique.

We're talking about our travels in the Eastern Caribbean so far so we're really looking at the islands from The Dominican Republic to Grenada.  We haven't been to Trinidad & Tobago yet so won't include them.  These are of course only our impressions and opinions - your mileage may vary.

I'm going to break this answer into four parts just to make it more manageable:

• Greater Antilles (Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico) and The Virgins (Spanish, U.S. & British)
• the outer Leeward Islands (Anguilla to Dominica)
• the inner Leeward Islands (Saba to Montserrat)
• and finally the Windward Islands (Martinique to Grenada).

By no means do I intend to recreate a cruising guide, I'll leave that to the talents of Chris Doyle and others, this is just a brief compendium of our observations about the islands and what we like or dislike about each one.  Who knows, perhaps at the end we'll even figure out if we have a favourite.

So here goes with installment #1:

Dominican Republic
The DR is a huge island and is a total enigma to me.  We visited the south shore - limited to the La Romana to Bayahibe coast, had a spell of bad weather (worst at anchor we've ever experienced), a fabulous visit with friends on a resort and a great side-trip to the capital, Santo Domingo.  At the end of it we decided that we had no big desire to revisit this island due to the constant hustle / coercion, hassle / corruption with officials, and what we found to be very unfriendly locals.  We don't speak Spanish so that was a definite barrier and we've heard mixed reviews from other cruisers who have visited the north shore.  Some absolutely love  A lasting little reminder of our time on the island was the bottom paint job we had done in what we thought was a reputable marina there.  We don't feel that the job was at all well done and after six months we had very little bottom paint left in certain areas.  It is pretty obvious to us that they didn't put on a primer and possibly less paint than was reported.  Shame on us for not doing the job ourselves - we won't make that mistake again.

In just a few words words - Love/Hate:
     Love:  Santo Domingo old city
     Hate:  Constant hustle

Insane driving with motoconchos zipping in and out.

Quaint street scenes in the old city portion of Santo Domingo.

Enthusiasm and energy of young guys is the same everywhere.

Chess and dominos - on the pedestrian street in between rain showers.

Puerto Rico
Another big island - this one is American.  We traveled westward and eastward along the south shore to get to/from the DR.  We loved our time on Puerto Rico, the landscape is dramatic and the little fishing towns are quaint and charming.  The people are friendly and welcoming and although many don't speak English and we don't speak Spanish, it didn't seem to stop us from communicating (unlike the DR).  Heading eastward is difficult as you are heading straight into wind, wave and current which means that you'll try anything to make the miles, including sailing close to reef-strewn, fish-pot laden shores in the dark of night.  Not a fun endeavour.  We haven't ventured much inland on PR and will definitely spend more time there in the future.
     Love:  People
     Hate:  East-bound passage making

Stunning mountain range behind Salinas on the south shore of PR.

The Spanish Virgin Islands:  Culebra & Culebrita, Vieques
We've spent quite a bit of time on Culebra and Culebrita off the east end of Puerto Rico but only had one visit many years ago to Vieques.  These islands used to be the back-water cruising grounds, many saying they were like the British Virgins were 20 years ago.  I think that has changed a lot and Culebra/Culebrita are soundly into the 21st century now.  The island is a weekend getaway for Puerto Ricans coming over on the ferry and their own boats, little cantinas are scattered around the beaches and in the little town making eating/drinking a fun adventure.  Golf cart rentals are the way to see the tiny little island and Culebrita can only be reached by boat.  The inside anchorage at Ensenada Honda is chock-full of boats with sheltered waters and easy access to the shops and restaurants, the outside anchorage on the west side is quieter if you discount the regular ferry that goes in and out.  The best thing about Culebra is that it is a resting and gathering spot for cruisers from all over the place after completing the difficult easting along the shores of Puerto Rico - there's an audible sigh of relief heard with each arriving vessel.
     Love:  Laid back
     Hate:  Too far west from the Eastern Caribbean

Flamenco - the most beautiful beach on Culebra and a top beach of the Caribbean.

Feeding time at the Dinghy Dock bar - patrons, birds and fish all partake.

The morning market is open in Culebra - best chance to pick up some fresh veggies.

The U.S. Virgin Islands:  St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John
St. Thomas (the island of the Big Hurry), St. Croix (once an industrial island, now in decline) and St. John (the island of nature), along with a few smaller islands make up the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The three islands are quite distinctly different and we have spent most of our time on STT and STJ with a couple of short visits to STX.  We have friends on STT which makes it a special place for us after having Mowzer based there for five years of charter.  This is the island where people can easily fly in/out and from there disperse to the other islands.  Cruise ships disgorge thousands (sometimes 10s of thousands) of passengers here on a daily basis in high season so you have to keep your patience and your wits about you.  Keep your wits about you too if/when you drive here:  American cars (driver on the left) but drive on the left as in Britain.  Our favourite of the islands is St. John.  You are immediately transported to the white sand beaches and clear turquoise waters of your Caribbean dreams.  Nature trails abound with a good dose of plantation history.  In some bays on the south shore you cannot see a single light at night other than moon and stars, if you are lucky enough to be there by yourself.  On a short visit to the Virgins, we have been happy to spend our time on STJ and not bother crossing over to the BVIs.
     Love:  Entry to "the Caribbean"
     Hate:  Americanization of the Caribbean

Leinster Bay on the north shore of St. John.

Looking west to St. Thomas.

St. Thomas on a busy day.

The British Virgin Islands:  Jost van Dyke, Tortola, Norman Island, Peter Island, Salt Island, Cooper Island, Ginger Island, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and many other islets
Each island in the BVI does have a unique element or attraction but they are all similar topographically other than Anegada which is a low-lying limestone island.  The others are all old volcanic islands and all of the islands in this region tend to be quite dry and scrubby.  The BVI have become home to one of the largest charter fleets in the world.  There are probably thousands of bareboat and crewed charter boats plying these waters and with good reason.  The waters are protected, the islands are close together, there is entertainment provided in every major bay / anchorage.  The place has been filled up with expensive mooring balls ($35US / night), loud beach bars and plenty of people that probably shouldn't be trying to sail a boat.  However, these are all reasons (other than that last one) why we actually love the Virgins - the sailing is easy, the waters are lovely and clear and there's always something to do, even if it just means sitting back and watching the antics in the mooring field each afternoon.  This is really where we learned to sail and fell in love with the idea of living on the boat so these islands are rather like coming home to us.  Those who complain that it is too busy and the anchorages are too full, just have to spend a little more time with their charts and look for the quiet little bays where the charter boats won't go (no beach bar or mooring balls.)
     Love:  Easy sailing
     Hate:  Expensive

Overlooking Eustatia Sound on Virgin Gorda.

Hazy, relaxed afternoon overlooking Tortola.

Anegada - a world apart from her sister islands.

There we have it - what's your favourite of these islands?  Stay tuned for the next instalment as we move east and south through the islands.

Off-Roading on Culebra

Time for a day ashore and enjoying this beautiful little island!

The crew from Almost There were also up for a little exploration so we headed into town to rent golf carts for a tour of the island. As with most things we do, we hate making plans and booking in advance so of course when we got to the rental shops, there were no golf carts left but we could all pile into a jeep, which we did.

Ensenada Honda is a huge deep bay in the middle of Culebra, coming up from the south. We drove out on the eastern side of the island and found some fabulous views back on the little town of Culebra and the airfield below.

Mowzer is anchored on the ocean side just over the saddle of land.

For much of our tour we turned off the main road and explored side roads and dirt tracks. It's a very small island but amazing what you can find away from the beaten path. Robert, our fearless driver maneuvered up and over hills until we found the jeep's limit but not before we'd found some interesting spots to continue on foot.

This little pebble beach gave up lots of beach glass and little interesting little bits of shells.

Blue and bluer!

Along the way we found lots of construction, new and old. This house had a beautiful setting and was obviously designed to take advantage of the views. Sometimes it's just nice to sit and dream...

Loved the entry / breezeway that led right through the house.

On our way to the top of the hill.

And back down to the bottom where we watched planes take off and land.

By lunchtime our tummies led us up to the northwest and Playa Flamenco. This beautiful beach has the most lovely fluffy white sand, interesting reefs and snorkeling, a moderate surf on this day although we've seen it crashing up the beach in the past, requisite palm trees for shade, and most importantly a charming collection of kiosks dishing up cold drinks and great meals. We opted for various seafood empanadillas and delicious BBQ skewered chicken which did not disappoint.

Playing around with the panorama setting on the camera ... Gives the bay a strange square effect.

This guy with the most gorgeous eyes desperately wanted to share our empanadillas.

As the sun set in the west we made our way back to return the jeep and then dropped into the Dinghy Dock for a few more libations and celebration of a day well spent with good friends.

Henry and I carried on to try out a new-to-us place called Zaco's Tacos. We'd heard good reviews and they were certainly bang-on with delicious soft-shelled tacos and quesadillas. Standing in line waiting for a table for two with two other table-for-two groups we quickly found out that a table for six was available. What better idea than to join up with two guys from Louisiana and a couple from Brooklyn. The special for the evening was Tongue Tacos, which I am pleased to report were delicious!

What a fabulous day. Nothing daunted we are now ready to tackle our engine problems tomorrow.

Puerto Rico Has It's Clutches on Us

The last three days have been a bit of an adventure, some highs and lows but we are now back to our beloved Culebra.

Let's see how it went...

On Friday in Salinas we walked back up to the grocery store and with the much needed help of a taxi ride back to the boat we did a final provisioning trip, mostly on cannd and bottled goods. You'll think that all we've done on PR is provision, but with prices like we won't see again in the islands we hope now that we've got supplies laid in for quite a while.

Canned goods stored in the bilges.

Can you tell we like Puerto Rican sangria? I foretell of some good times ahead.

With all the predictions and weather gurus telling us that if we wanted to move up the coast to the east, this weekend was the time to do it, we moved ourselves five miles up to the end of the Bahia de Jobos to sit behind the reef ready for an easy exit on Friday night.

A final farewell to Salinas and the magnificent mountain views.

Up we got again at midnight, made our exit and found the winds and sea blowing hard but decided to press on close to shore, tucking behind reefs where we could for some relief. Unfortunately, and we certainly knew the risk was there, we ran across a fisherman's trap float line and managed to wrap it around the starboard propellor. Of course this happened at 3am and as we were passing inside a reef, but we managed to cut ourselves free (sorry to the fisherman but there was no saving the trap in the dark) and limped on to the next anchorage on one engine. Isn't it wonderful that we have two! Also wonderful was that on this bit of coastline there are very few stopping places and we happened to be just across the bay from the last one. We anchored in Puerto Patilla in the dark, went to bed and waited until daylight to deal with our snag.

Never a good sign when there's a gritty float and line attached to the back of the boat.

The anchorage was silty and rolly so getting the line cut away was no easy job. Henry spent at least 40 minutes in the water getting his head bumped and shoulder bruised, but he was successful in getting the line away and the prop spinning as it should.

This is one of those times we wished we were divers.

Getting the line cut off the propellor shaft in bits and pieces.

The final collection of line and float.

After testing that our prop was not free-spinning and talking to a couple of friends via phone, we made the decision to move on, knowing that where we were anchored would not be possible to get any service if needed. We had a choice of returning to Salinas, 15 miles behind us, or pressing on and try to make the marina at Puerto del Rey and service if required. The winds were down a bit so we decided to carry on and both engines behaved beautifully.

By mid afternoon we decided to divert to Vieques since there was no way we would make it up the coast to the marina before dark. Weren't we thrilled to arrive at the anchorage and find Laura and Jason on Blue Blaze there, welcoming us to drop anchor beside them. We spent the day in Ponce with these good folks and it was wonderful to meet up again.

Even more wonderful was Jason's offer to dive under the boat the next morning and replace our propellor with our spare. Sure enough, there was one small piece of rope left and a small dent in a flange on the propellor so we were very happy to get the new one installed. Friends like this are pretty amazing!

New propellor in place Sunday morning saw us setting off for Culebra. As we sailed around the reef at the tip of Vieques, we were once again in the beautiful clear blue waters of the Virgin Islands and all felt much better in the world. After two weeks of beating our way to windward up the coast of PR we now really appreciate just how special a place the Virgin Islands are with their protected anchorages, shorter distances and beautiful waters.

A much happier sailor!

Not to be outdone though, our starboard engine may have sustained further damage in our late night incident and about 10 miles from Culebra it went on strike. Once again we limped into the anchorage on one engine with winds blowing hard making it difficult to anchor. The relief was palpable once the anchor was down and we both decided we were in much need of pizza for dinner.

Heather's Pizza dished up a great dinner in a very busy little spot.

Tomorrow is another day and the saying goes that cruising is really just doing boat maintenance in exotic places. Seems like we have another day of boat work ahead of us.

Slow & Steady

The winds were definitely pretty elusive today although we made the best of it and sailed, albeit slowly, nearly all the way to Green Bay on Vieques. I won't bore you with the minutiae of our day but it was calm enough that I was able to refresh my pedicure. Just look at how flat that sea is!

Looking west, the clouds piled up on Puerto Rico where it rained in the interior for much of the day.

Looking back to the north-east there was a little puff of cloud over Culebra. Other than that it was clear, bright blue, all day long.

Looking at the chart plotter there are a number of circled areas around Vieques, labelled "Explosive Anchorage Area". Knowing the history of Vieques and the U.S. Navy's penchant for blowing things up around here, we will definitely stay clear of these areas, but it tickled my funny bone to see this label. Other charts just label the areas as Dangerous, but Explosive is so much more descriptive.

By mid-afternoon we arrived at our intended anchorage for the night. We stayed here once before about five years ago when there were a number of mooring balls in the bay protecting the grassy bottom. None are to be seen now so we searched for a sandy spot to drop the hook but ended up having to dig into the grass since the only sand to be found was between large boulders. Wonder what happened to all the wonderful free moorings that used to be here?

We're not complaining though as we had the entire bay to ourselves for the evening.

Look to the north...

... look to the south. Yup, that's pretty much idyllic!

We settled in for a late afternoon swim, got a bucket full of laundry done and hung to dry and then ooh'd and ahh'd as the sun set over Puerto Rico and the lights twinkled in the distance.

No comments please about airing the laundry, or my delicates :-)

On The Doorstep of Puerto Rico

The Spanish Virgin Islands lie just off the east coast of Puerto Rico and this is not the first time we have visited. In fact this our fourth foray to Culebra and it still remains one of our favourites.

We awoke to find St. Thomas wearing a cap of cloud that developed through the early morning into rain, but it never caught up with us as we headed west. We had a near-perfect sail for four hours that landed us just off the town of Culebra (Dewey) in time for lunch.

The slopes above Brewer's Bay disappear into the cloud cap.

St. Thomas fed a line of squalls that happily stayed north of us.

Looking west to blue skies over Culebra.

The town is accessible from the ocean side on the west or from a deep bay on the east, the two are joined by a mangrove lined lagoon that we dinghied through to get to the dock. As we approached we were intrigued by this new addition to the breakwater. Much of life here is peppered with humour and this proved no exception: this portulant, bearded, rock-hurling character guards the lagoon and the surrounding waters and yet looks as though he could be pulling up a bar-stool at Mamacita's for happy hour if you invited him along.

Looks like pretty good shot-putt form.

Mangrove lagoon, main channel on the left leads under the non-functional lift bridge to Ensenada Honda where we tied up to the dinghy dock.

We stopped in at the airport to do our check-in for Puerto Rico. Primed with the pride of PR, a cold Medalla, and our freshly issued arrival number we are all ready. Yeah, yeah, it's a Medalla Light, but that's all they had at the airport cafe. If we don't find regular Medalla soon, we'll switch back to the pride of the DR which is Presidente and our beer of choice pretty much up until now.

Most welcome after the hot walk to the airport.

Since we hit customs at lunchtime we were pretty much delayed in Culebra until early afternoon and decided we really didn't want to make the 25 mile run to the west end of Vieques this afternoon, so we strolled around town, picked up some bread (pan agua), and admired some of the local artwork before heading back to Mowzer.

Everywhere you turn in Culebra you are afforded brightly painted houses, fences and utility boxes. In fact, just about anything that offers a permanent surface has been at least painted and most likely decorated in some fashion. Not only does this create a most pleasant effect, but I bet it cuts down on graffiti too.

The lively street front across from the ferry terminal.

Not sure what this building was, but look carefully on the right and you'll see what keeps their grass so I nice and short.

Just to give an idea of the skill level, this is not just paint slapped on a wall, this takes some talent.

To put this all in perspective, here's the Google view of where we've come from and where we plan to be in the next few days. St. Thomas on the right, Culebra by the blue dot where we are tonight, a planned stop on Vieques tomorrow and then the south shore of Puerto Rico after that.