Culebra & Culebrita

We’ve spent the last few days exploring the Spanish Virgin Islands off the coast of PR. These are places I’ve longed to visit since the New York Times first highlighted Vieques as an unspoiled paradise newly vacated by the Navy. ..

These are pictures of today, including my toes from the hammock here in Vieques and culebrita, another deserted anchorage.

Most people post pictures of the fish they catch, we post pictures of our lures and the giant teethmarks left by the fish that got away.

Two nights ago we did a turtle watch with a very fun family from s/v Liberty. We were only with them for one day but we really enjoyed it. Their sons are12 and 15 and they’ve Been afloat for 3 years. Anyway, the turtle watch meant spending the night on the beach with a marine biologist and 4 other volunteers getting devoured by sand fleas. Poor Gigi’s face looks worse than any case of chicken pocks. We walked miles up and down that beach every 30 minutes from 9 pm until 4 am looking for a Volkswagen beetle aka leatherback turtle.

Although one was supposed to return as she had deposited a nest full of eggs about 10 days ago none showed up. We got back to the boat at 5 am and are still trying to not be too bitter about it. After all, the marine biologist has been doing this every night for over a month.

The kids have updated their blogs again. Check the bottom of their pages.