January 02 – January 15, 2024; 12078 nm and 1761 days after departure from La Rochelle

The weather gods kept their promises and let us fly on a beautiful first day of 2024 from St Croix to Culebra. (Culebra is an island, town and municipal of Puerto Rico (PR) and geographically part of the Spanish Virgin Islands. It is located approximately 17 miles east of the Puerto Rican mainland.) The anchorage was ok but somehow we didn’t fell in love with it. The small town was mainly occupied by arriving and leaving tourists which were travelling by ferry. When a ferry was due all the little shops and restaurants opened and offered their souvenirs and (special) food. Apart from that the town didn’t have much to offer. For us interesting was a small supermarket which was surprisingly well equipped. A nice -I guessed- sailor fellow told us that fresh groceries were usually delivered on a Wednesday. He also told us about “D’s Garden” on the other side of the bay where it would also be possible to get veggies. Having already explored the “big” town we jumped into the dinghy and tried to find D’s Garden on the other side.

After a 20 min walk and asking only once for directions we found the garden. They offered cacti plants and very few veggies at the time we were there. Not that exciting but at least they had some nice fresh fruit juices which we couldn’t resist to try. So instead of purchasing fresh veggies we enjoyed a break in a shady spot with our pineapple and passion fruit juices.
The next day was a very lazy one. Apart from a fuel and diesel run to top up our tank and jerrycans we only managed to decide where to head next. Our choice was La Chiva beach. An anchorage at the south side of Isla de Vieques (which also belongs to PR). Before heading there we took advantage of the fresh delivered groceries. We bought what we needed to keep us going for a while and then lifted the anchor. It was a pleasant unspectacular four hour sail. Just no fish again😩! Such a pity! Well, fortunately we had picked a beautiful anchorage which we shared with only one other boat. That felt nice after months of rather crowded areas. The bay had a long empty beach with plenty of trees, plants and palm trees. The east side was more rocky and provided a nice playground and hunting area for several seabirds. It also made a nice ground for having a bonfire. The other boat had planned a bbq one day at the beach and invited us to join. We loved that idea! And as it is sometimes, by chance we had bought some pork chops in Culebra (which we didn’t have for a long time). A beautiful afternoon with good food and nice company.

Vieques was used as a shooting range and testing ground of the United States Navy. Google said: “International protests against the bombing and testing led to the Navy´s departure in 2003. Today the former navy land is a national wildlife refuge; some of it is open to the public, but much remains closed off due to contamination and/or unexploded ordnance that the military is slowly cleaning up.” What? Well, knowing that, explained the strange signs we found while strolling along the coast line. Relax! As you can read, we managed to survive. We did not cause an explosion or found dangerous munition😉. Who knows about the 3R’s rule?

Another fun part which especially I also really liked were the many horses on the island. They seemed to live free and we saw them everywhere. At the beach, sometimes they looked for shade at houses, on streets and we even saw one enjoying a refreshing bath in the ocean. So very cute! They were definitely not wild horses as they were much too relaxed when we got closer. I was curious to find out what it was all about. Here is what I found out: Most horses are branded and belong to different families. However, owners usually don’t seem to have enough land to sustain and feed them. That’s why the horses live free on the island. When they are needed, the owners magically know where to find them. Many Viequenses still seem to ride horses for transportation purposes or use them to work on their farms. What a different way to keep horses. Well I guess on a small island like Vieques it makes sense!

San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico was calling us. Remember, we left the San Blas end of October to sail straight to the Dominican Republic (DR). And we still weren’t there yet. So it kind of urged us to get going. After all we also wanted to have some time to explore the DR before heading to the Bahamas. Therefore we only stayed three nights at this relaxed anchorage, one more at a neighbouring beach only a few miles west and then made our way up to San Juan.
Entering the huge Bahia de San Juan and passing the old fortress with our small Altimate was indeed impressive. It took us another half an hour until we finally reached the anchorage in the far east of the bay. A narrow anchorage with not much space and right next to giant docking cruising ships. I was as well relieved as impressed by the docking skills of the captains! They managed to magically move the boat sidewards to the dock. No clue how that works but for sure amazing!

San Juan (SJ) was the opposite of Vieques. Gone was the calm and quiet atmosphere. Here we were welcomed to a historic Caribbean town pulsing with modern energy. On our first day we were out and about exploring the town. It was a big city! We were not expecting that. So many neighbourhoods. I must confess that we didn’t know much about the town. All we knew was that SJ was very old and that it had a fortress and a wall. That was the reason we jumped in an Uber and let us take to the old historic part of the town. It was not our best decision…🤷‍♀️ What we didn’t know (but should have known!) was, that it was a day when 4! cruising ships were in town at the same time. Can you imagine? Guess where all the tourists go to? Correcto, to the historic part of the town. Therefore the old town was packed with tourists. A guided tour here in French another one there in German and many more in other languages. Plus of course the non guided tourists in all age groups and on top of it all the two of us. Waaaaay too much people! That made our visit rather short that day but nevertheless we already got a glimpse of the beauty of that area. Instead of admiring historic buildings we used the bus transportation to get to a more modern neighbourhood without tourists but the possibility to buy a sim card. It took us a while to find a sim card. Finally we ended up at Wallmart to get one. I thought that was rather funny as in all of the other countries we had been so far we were always able to buy a sim card at almost every corner shop. Anyway with the card we were now able to easily Uber. That reminds me… When we took the bus, we knew that we had to have exact money and we knew that it only costs 1,5 dollar per ride for the two of us. But when we wanted to pay with a one dollar bill and a 50 cent coin the driver only took the 50 cent because he couldn’t take bills. Isn’t that amazing? He wasn’t even complaining or telling us to be better prepared for the next time; he just let us take the ride. I thought that was super nice and so friendly. I wish that would be possible in Germany too.

The next morning El Capitano was busy figuering out how to get a proof of a US country (PR belongs to the US) that we left it. In other countries you get an exit zarpe and a stamp in the passport. In US you can just leave. However other countries require an exit proof to enter their country. It took him a few phone calls and in the end we knew we had to go to immigration to get a CBP 1300 form before leaving. After knowing the procedure we were then free to see more of SJ. My wish was to check on a farmers market called “La Placita” in the neighbourhood Santurce. Well let’s say, that was not what I had hoped for. In my imagination I thought we would find a nice big farmers market with fresh veggies, fruit, fish and meat. A busy place with colourful products and chattering people. As you can imagine it was different. There was exactly one booth which had a few veggies. The rest of the plaza was filled with bars and restaurants which were still closed. Somehow I must have misunderstood … we should have come here in the evening. It was probably a great place to party and eat all night long. Sometime you win sometime you lose, right? Still full of energy we decided to walk direction waterfront. There were several neighbourhoods which sounded interesting. We walked a lot but couldn’t really find the interesting waterfront area. We had a stop for lunch in a cafe somewhere on a busy street and then kept walking. Somehow it didn’t seem to be our day. In the tourist brochure it said there was a nice waterfront with many shops and bars but… either we were too stupid to find it or we were at a complete wrong place, who knows? 🙈🤣

Already getting a bit tired from all the street walking and being a bit disappointed we decided to take a bus back to the old city. This time we were lucky we had found a bus stop pretty fast and didn’t had to wait long for the bus to come. Again, we only had 4 quarters and the bus driver only took the quarters. He wouldn’t take the bill. Amazing! Regenerated from the 30 min bus ride we started to explore the old city. This time with no cruising ships at all. It was a beautiful afternoon with perfect light and we loved strolling through the city and along the wall. When the sun started to set we walked up to the fort and enjoyed the amazing view from the elevated fortress. Just before dark we went back to the city area and found a nice and delicious restaurant. A perfect end of a divers day.

As time was flying we had to get prepared for leaving. The whole next morning was used to get fresh groceries and the afternoon was needed to get the CBP 1300 form. That gave us another free next day as we planned to leave in the late afternoon just before sunset. This time we walked all the way along the south side of the island SJ until we reached “La Perla” and “The Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery”. We had missed both the other day and still wanted to see them. La Perla was famous for its colourful small houses. The house building outside of the city was made by slaves as they weren’t allowed to live inside of the city. The Santa Maria Cemetery was officially established in the late 1800s and is the burial site of some of most famous citizens. It was an impressive cemetery in a great location. Meanwhile it was already early afternoon and we had to get back to Altimate. Our exhausted legs were craving for a ride so we treated them with an uber. Back on Altimate we had a late lunch and were then ready to head off to the Dominican Republic – finally!!!!