Sometimes I think that I repeat myself too much when I say, “We had another delightful sail.”  The reason I get to say that so often is that we are very careful in our passage planning and look for the easy weather window.  So I get to start off this posting once again by saying we had a delightful sail!

We picked up on short notice out heading east when the Tradewinds calmed a bit earlier than forecast.  Our original intention was to stop at Vieques, but things went so well we would have gotten there at 3AM, and would have then needed to heave-to offshore to wait for sufficient light for a safe approach.  Karen suggested that we continue on, so we reset our sights further east for Isla de Culebra, arriving in early morning.

We found Culebra to be a delightful island, quite busy with cruising sailboats, and relatively undeveloped.  Likely a place you have never heard of, it is halfway between the main island of Puerto Rico and St Thomas. It is one of the “Spanish Virgin Islands” that are part of Puerto Rico. From here we can see the main island of Puerto Rico to the west, and St Thomas to the east. We are anchored in the main harbor near town.

The population of the island is about 2000, and for the kind of place that it is, it seems relatively well off.  It is a very popular vacation and weekend getaway from Puerto Rico as well as a popular spot for boats passing through the area to stay for a while.

After spending yesterday recovering from our overnight passage, we went exploring a bit today, hit the local grocery, and had a marvelous dinner out.  Our plans for tomorrow are to move around to the northern part of the island where the snorkeling is supposed to be excellent.