New Year's Eve in Culebrita, PR and on Into The Virgins!

We motored (mostly) from Ponce, PR across from the southeastern end of PR and up to Culebrita. One of our favorite harbors in the entire Leewards. We made terrific time in our easting and wound up in the pretty little harbor on Friday the 29th. We stayed there through New Year's Eve and hopped across to St. Thomas on New Year's day. Culebrita is one of those picture postcard spots with white sand beaches and the clear blue water one would expect in the Caribbean islands. It didn't disappoint. The island has become a favorite for the Puerto Ricans as well. They come from the mainland, mostly in larger outboard rigs with all their friends and families. Arriving around 9 AM, the steady stream of motor yachts arrives until around noon, when the party swings into full speed. There must be over 50 boats, all stern tied to the beach, so close to each other that you could almost step from one to another. Then at around 4 PM they start to pull out until at around 6, we are left alone again in the harbor for the night, a most welcome relief. We enjoyed PR much more this trip than we have in the past. We found the people to be friendly and industrious. Their spirits seemed unfailing from the hurricane damages, and they just seemed to take it all in stride. Damage was evident all around and yet life moved forward, however slowly. We were fortunate to have a harbormaster (the boss of the marina we stayed in at Cabo Rojo) who was very aware of the PR government's activities as he advised us well regarding the sales tax abatement in place since hurricane Maria caused so much damage The PR government decided that as a stimulous option, they would forgo collecting sales tax on purchases made from the hurricane through the end of the year. This provided us with a terrific opportunity to purchase several of our larger items without having to pay sales tax. Sales tax in PR is over 10% so that was a BIG deal. Since we had already planned on buying a new dinghy and having substantial boat work done (labor is taxable in PR), we figure we have saved over $2000 on sales tax alone through this deal. Not a bad way to stimulate the retail and service economy, I'd say. In Ponce harbor, we saw several boats that had been destroyed by the storm, still resting against the rock walls or partially submerged in the harbor. It was very sad to consider that one day in the not so distant past, these boats had provided their owners some sense of pleasure, much the same as ours continues to do. Now, they are to be plucked from the water by cranes and smashed into rubble for the landfill. It was obvious that the boats have all been stripped of anything valuable as gaping holes where electronics had once been were quite evident. We wondered where these items wound up as there must be a tremendous collection of still useable parts somewhere, awaiting an eager buyer.

Sunken boat On New Year's Day morning, we hauled anchor and motored across the 15 miles to St. Thomas, arriving at noon. We found a favorite anchorage available and dropped the hook for the next couple of days. We will be in this anchorage for a couple of days as we get work done on our diesel engine alternators and reprovision with food and the always popular, and oh-so-necessary liquid refreshments. Then, we intend o heading on through the Virgins to see, firsthand, the extent of damage the hurricanes caused. Likely, we will head across the Anegada Passage to St. Martin and on down island within the next 10 days. I will try to be frequent with blog posts but some places are not easy to access wifi for posting so be patient. Stay tuned...