This was a response I made to someone who asked be about my trip to
the SVI in December. I thought I would post it on this website in case
it would be helpful to anyone.
Hello Larry,
I read with interest of your pre-trip posts to the cruisers
forums seeking infromation about
Culebra
and Vieques. Curious if I could pick your brain briefly, since
my wife and I pick up a
charter out
of Fajardo, PR in mid-March. We plan to travel clockwise from
Fajardo to
Culebra and Vieques over
the course of 5 days.
I've bought a few of the
cruising guides but wanted to know if
you had found any relaible
GPS
waypoints for approaches to key
anchorages in the SVI's. Also
trying to find a nice spot between the
PR mainland and Culebra to overnight.
Hope your trip was a good one, and thanks in advance.
With best wishes,
Mark
Hi Mark,
My wife Eileen and I had a great two week trip. Had lots of
wind (15 to 30 kts)
and good sized waves (up to 14 ft). We did not get to any of
the islands between
Culebra and Fajardo because we got winded in a couple of days in
Culebra. Here is
what we did do in the SVI.
Sailed from Jost Van Dyke (BVI) to Dakity Harbor, where we
moored overnight. Had
a wild dingy ride into Dewey to eat and do
customs the next
morning, then sailed to
Luis Pena to our favorate anchorage on the south west end.
There was too much
wind
and swell to be comfortable, so sailed to
Bahia Tamarindo on the
west side of Culebra.
It was very comfortable, had great snorkling, and a beautiful
beach. The only way to
get to this beach is a 1/2 hour walk, so not alot of people and
they were all gone by 4pm.
We spent 3 nights moored there due to the wind and the beautiful
location. There was
one other
boat there. The 1/2 hour walk takes you to Flamenco
beach, one of the prettiest
beaches I have ever seen. Dewey was a nice smooth 15 minute
dingy ride from there.
We then sailed around the east end of Viaques and moored off the
west side of Chiva island.
It was nice enough we stayed 2 nights. Snorkling was OK off our
side of the island. Our
next stop was Esperanza, where we enjoyed the town, the people
and the party. We
took a trip to the Mosquito Bio bay.
This would be a "don't miss" item to me. I have to believe that
it will be destroyed one
day by some "stupid human trick". It was a Sunday and all the
locals drove or
rode their
horses into town and partied until about 9 pm. We moored at the
north west end of Cayo Real.
If you stay there and use the dingy
dock, the islanders want you
to tie up on the west side
of the
dock close to shore, because
fishing boats also use this
dock. Right off the dock is
Blue Carib, where we took the Bio bay trip.
Monday we motored into the wind around the east end of the
Viaques and then sailed back to
Culebra, where we moored in
Bahia Almodovar. This is another
very pretty anchorage. From
there we motored around the north side of Culebrita til we got
into the lee of St. Thomas,
then sailed to St, Johns.
The wind, waves, and swell prevented us from going to several of
the places I had wanted to
visit. I believe you may not have this problem because of the
time of year you are going. I
would love go go back once more before this area gets deveolped,
so I would love to hear about
your trip after you go. I am also interested in where you
chartered from and how your
boat was.
I could not find a
charter company in PR.
As far as
GPS, I did use a couple waypoints to mark a couple
reefs I wanted to avoid and to line
up a couple of aproaches to
anchorages. All were accurate and
useful. They came from the
2003-2004 cruising guide the the
Virgin Islands by Nancy and
Simon Scott. The
current edition of
this book no longer contains a section on the SVI. If you would
like me to, I'll mail it to you if
you will mail it back to me after your trip.
I don't think I anchored at all in the SVI. There were free
mooring balls everywhere I went.
Where do you guys live. We are in Northwest Michigan and sail
Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
Looking forward to hearing back from you,
Larry
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