Puerto Rico has a tiny island off the east coast named Culebra and for far too long it’s been on our to-do list to visit. Time to go!
We splurged on an airplane commute, departing from Ceiba on the east coast. Which was a prudent choice as a few days before our departure the newspapers had tales of woe regarding the ailing and unreliable ferry.
Ceiba airport is tiny and Vieques Air didn’t even require verification of IDs when we checked in, and simply yelled out first names of the passengers when it was time to board. They did however insist that we physically step onto their baggage scale to see how much each person weighed. I guess they assume people will lie on the weights questionnaire when buying the tickets. No hiding the truth – we want a balanced plane!!
The small twin engine airplane was super loud but the flight was only about 14 minutes. The pilot thought he recognized me, and I asked if he attended the EAA meeting in Arecibo recently. His response of “What’s EAA?” was my answer.
We rented an AirBnB with a nice view of the main bay. The hosts were nice but there was only one air conditioner so night time was a little warm.
our balcony
Culebra is quite small. About 10 minutes after Trevor signed the rental Jeep agreement saying we would stay on paved roads, we drove up the first dirt road we saw to explore haha
Zoni beach our first evening there
We also stopped in the little Culebra museum
Culebra was used at a Navy base and bomb testing for many decades
There’s not that many restaurants so everyone kinda ends up at the same ones – here’s Dingy Docks right on the water. Some huge yachts were in the harbor!
downtown
The next morning we followed all the other tourists to a cute little cafe. Pretty much the only one. There are sharpies laying around so you can draw on the walls!
By her head you can see where I drew “Traura” – Trevor and my nickname when we were dating
The main attraction on the island is a beautiful beach named Flamenco. Consistently ranked among the worlds best, it has a parking lot, facilities, and plenty of alcohol and food stands. One of the most unique features are abandoned tanks left on the beach by the US Navy when the locals finally won the battle of booting them out. They left the tanks – they were too heavy for anyone to move, so they’ve stayed ever since.
The locals paint them occasionally. I don’t know if there’s more than two, be we only find this pair.
It was a cloudy and very windy day so we didn’t opt to pitch an umbrella. It was a lovely beach, but I like the ones in Cabo Rojo just as much. Trevor made me fall in love with him all over again when he totally got into doing a mini photoshoot on those tanks. He’s got a creative eye!
That night we went to another restaurant on the water–overlooking the river this time. There were plenty of stay cats meowing for food
a fun light inspired some cool photos
Our last morning we drove to Playa El Tamarindo and Playa Punta Soldado. We tuckered ourselves out so much the day before we didn’t swim – only walked around. Pretty!
The stones say “Marry Me” and someone wrote out “no” haha
Overall, the island is cute. I’m glad we went. It would’ve been nice to snorkel a little bit but the kids don’t do that yet so I wouldn’t have been easy. oh well. I’m glad we went. Three days was enough.
Hector the protector wooden statue, rebuilt after the hurricane