Culebrita near Culebra Puerto Rico

We left the anchorage in Ensenada Honda at 1400 on Thursday 17 January and motored the 6nm around to Culebrita, partly out of sheer laziness and partly because the wind was rather light and we wanted to arrive whilst the sun was still quite high in the sky.

Our first glimpse of the anchorage which was mostly hidden behind the sandy headland

Culebrita is a small island on the northeast coast of Culebra.  It has a lovely big bay on its north end with a fabulous white sand beach but in winter the bay is often affected by northerly swell making it untenable. However, the weather had been particularly settled for some time so it seemed an ideal opportunity to anchor here.

Bottom:  looking into the bay with the reefs on the starboard side of the entrance clearly visible

We weren’t the only people to have such a brilliant idea.  We could see some of the masts above the low ground as we approached the island from the south but it wasn’t until we rounded the final headland and could see right into the bay that we realised how many boats were anchored there.  It was a veritable boat-park.

The entrance to the bay has reefs on both sides and, whilst the route in is clear, being unfamiliar with the entrance we wanted to have good light to see the shoal areas.

There are a number of buoys in the bay and some of the boats were using these but there were also four yachts at anchor.  We guessed that they would be staying the night whereas, since the buoys are supposed to be for day use only, we expected the vessels on these to leave before nightfall. We joined the anchored yachts, finding ourselves a comfortable space on the west side of the bay in about 4m.

The lighthouse on Culebrita.  It is possible to walk up to the light but we didn’t see an obvious path though, to be fair, we weren’t searching too hard

Having ‘parked’ quite close to the reef, we snorkelled over to take a look and were rewarded by seeing 2 green turtles in the bay and a good variety of fish and coral on the seaward side of the reef.  We also saw a number of beer cans and a wine bottle which we removed back to BV for proper disposal at our next landfall.

We strolled the length of the beach and decided that this was one of those places where we simply had to do sundowners on the sand.

Palm trees behind the beach.  Many of the islands lack large palms following the hurricanes of 2017

And so we did, but not under the palm trees as it was warmer sitting in the final rays of the setting sun than in the shade.  Back on board BV when it became properly dark, we could see the white sand of the beach glowing amazingly brightly in the light of the moon.  It was a fabulous sight.  Our pilot book talks of the bay being bioluminescent and, whilst we didn’t see evidence of that (perhaps because the moon was so bright) it could be that the glow of the beach is partly explained by the presence of bioluminescence.

A good job well jobbed.  A clean(er) dinghy

In the morning before we set off, whilst the crew of 2 of the yachts did yoga on the beach, we scrubbed the bottom of the dinghy.  It probably wasn’t as much fun as the yoga but it was nearly as virtuous an activity and the dinghy looks a lot better for the attention.

Culebrita, near Culebra, Puerto Rico, USA