Sailing Ohana

Our first stop after leaving Puerto Real was Boquerón, a little beach town just south of us. We liked the look of the little bay, and the protected anchorage. The town gets over-run with college students on the weekends and we were lucky to be there on a weekday and it was totally quiet. There was a little sailing school for local kids who did lessons while we were there, which was cute to watch. We just spent the afternoon walking on the beach looking at some interesting hurricane-damaged resort buildings while the boys went skimboarding with their friends, we and checked out the tiny town full of little restaurants and shops. I had the feeling that it could get very touristy and have a party atmosphere there.

The next morning we moved to Isla Caja de Muertos, aka Coffin Island. Some people think it is called that because of the shape of the island, others refer to a romantic story about a pirate and his love, whom he entombed in a cave on the island hundreds of years ago. We had nice wind and were able to sail, enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. We decided to check out a couple of the reefs in the area before we reached the island, since we had heard there is good diving in the area. We anchored the boat and dinghyed around to various spots on the reef, Jackson and I jumped into a couple of spots and found that it was overfished and sadly there was not much to see there. We dodged fishing buoys like landmines as we continued along the Southern shore of Puerto Rico. We assume that the deeper areas for diving around here are better, because they seem popular.

We arrived at Coffin Island just in time to hike to the top of the hill with our friends and watch the sunset. It was a glorious end to the day, and sadly was followed up by the rolliest night we’ve had in a very long time. We got up early to move on.

They call the islands around Puerto Rico and to the East the “Spanish Virgin Islands”. They’re actually part of PR. Our next stop was Vieques, which is one of those islands. We anchored in beautiful Sun Bay with a lovely sandy beach, next to the town of Esperanza, and enjoyed our time there. We walked into town with friends every day, and found lots of fun murals, funky artwork, and an interesting museum. We hosted our boat buddy group on our boat for dinner and games, ending the night with a hilarious round of Cards Against Humanity (family edition).

The highlight was Mosquito Bay, which is a bioluminescent bay known to be the brightest in the world. We left our anchorage in our dinghies at sunset, and arrived at the bay just as it was getting dark. Once you get into the channel to the bay, you have to cut your engines and paddle. It was absolutely stunning, and lived up to the hype! We were surprised to discover that it is almost impossible to get footage of the bioluminescence; there’s something about the way that it lights up against the black water that makes it very hard to capture. We were disappointed that some friends of our friends jumped in and swam in the bay, which is not allowed, and can damage the ecosystem. When we got back to our anchorage, we noticed that there was even bioluminescence in the water underneath our boat! Spencer and I spent time splashing around and it was pretty cool.