Esperanze on Vieques (Puerto Rico)

S/V Goldcrest
David & Lindsay Inwood
Wed 2 Apr 2014 18:07

For various reasons we moved on from Culebra a bit sooner than expected, headed to the other Spanish Virgin island of Vieques, as 25 mile run to the south.  Winds were light so we had to motor-sail, mostly along the glorious southern coast.  The east end of Vieques had been used by the US for target practice for decades, leaving the place unspoilt (if you don’t count the unexploded bombs) with low limestone cliffs breaking up the run of lovely beaches:-

We found a nice bay to anchor in, but after a rather rolly time over lunch, decided to move on to nearby Esperanza which had more shelter from the swell.  As we were trying to anchor amongst the private moorings buoys a Brit dinghied over and said we could use a French sailor’s mooring for a few days, which made life a bit easier.  The place is heaving with Brits – after chatting to him, another couple from the Lake District came over for a chat (bizarrely whilst we were swimming, them in their dinghy being blown away from our boat, us treading water to keep near them!).  Since then we’ve heard several very English sounding “hellos” as we’ve walked about.  We had drinks and supper in a nearby bar, very unexciting fare (apart from some great beer), but allowing us to take this rather nice sunset shot with our fancy new camera:

Today we were up just early enough to go ashore for some exercise; D did a 4 mile run to a mangrove swamp where the vicious sounding mozzies made further progress inadvisable, L spent the time jogging and exercising on the beach;  Ensenada Sun Bay – very idyllic:

The main reason to be here is to visit the nearby bioluminescent bay tonight.  As we couldn’t stay in the original anchorage we face quite a long dinghy run back in the dark, so if this turns out to be the last blog entry, you’ll know why…