[Kyle]From Mosquito Bay, we had a short downwind sail to the long, sandy beach on the western end of Vieques. Since at Mosquito Bay, apart from then nightly bio-bay tours (which were not within sight of Begonia's anchorage) and tour boats dropping off their charges for their hour on the beach, we never saw anyone else, we were quite surprised to find Puenta Bermuedes dotted with beach goers. Maryanne posited that since the beach is more accessible by road and since it has clear views to the west over Puerto Rico's main island, all of these people were lining up for the sunset. Also, it was New Year's Eve, so they may have also been hoping for fireworks shows from the much bigger population centers on the big island.
We basically had two choices for spots to drop our anchor that were known to have reliably sandy, coral-free patches to drop the hook. The first was right by the parking area for the road. The beach was pretty full there, as was the water, with lots of splashing frolickers. There were also several pairs of powerboats rafted up together, each trying to outdo the volume of the other boats' sound systems.
The other spot was about half a mile south, with no other boats and just one small, but hardy group on the beach who had carried their whole collection of beach paraphernalia from their car. Maryanne and I didn't mind being near the celebrations, but right in the middle seemed a bit much, so we took a slight right and headed for the southern spot. About that time, another catamaran that had been converging on us, motoring fast against the wind from the big island, seemed to make a real point of trying to beat us to the parking lot anchorage.
"Oh, nooooo! That was our spot!" I said at a volume no one could hear.
Our local beach goers, who may have been hoping for enough privacy to partake in a little nudity, packed up and left before we had even backed down on the anchor. Sorry about that. Everywhere else around here has too much coral...
We had about fifteen minutes of smugly enjoying our newfound privacy, when two big motor yachts, exactly of the variety I have been complaining a lot about recently, came right at us, passed through our swinging circle toward the beach, maneuvered around a bit, and then rafted up together on the other, upwind side. Even though it was still a couple hours before dark, we would see they already had the stadium lights blazing. Facepalm...
Sunset happened, which was as nice as we expected it to be, with the sun sinking into the hills behind the village of Yubucoa on the main island. Then every last person on the beach walked to their cars and left. Fifteen seconds behind them, all of the small rafted powerboats took off as well, leaving the other catamaran over there in an oasis of clean air and dark skies. Doh!
Well, it's probably only for the one night. Our two big cabin cruisers weren't actually that bad. They turned the music down at night to a low background level and as long as we didn't try to stargaze in the washed out eastern half of the sky, they weren't bothersome. They did make a bit of noise at actual midnight, but that's to be expected.
We were hoping that we would be in view of fireworks displays from two or three of the bigger settlements on the main island. It turns out that's not how Puerto Rico does it.
Sunset came, and aside from 100's of distant firework displays we had our direct neighbours offering pyrotechnic entertainment too
It seems that every single person over there on the big island was in possession of a pretty big supply of commercial-grade fireworks. At midnight, the WHOLE coast erupted in an undulating, unbroken line of colorful explosions that went on for the better part of an hour. Our cabin cruiser raft set off a display that lit us all up like were were parked in Winnebagos in front of a State Fair. Just when things would wind down, Maryanne and I would gather up our cushions and head toward the cockpit when another half-hour cycle would start. At 3:30, we finally gave up trying to stay awake to the end and went to bed to a background noise of pop, pop, BOOM! crackle, crackle, crackle...
The next day, at the crack of noon, we emerged to find the other catamaran was already gone. We headed out for a long snorkel and beach walk. The seabed was mostly cracked rock, with the occasional small coral heads. We didn't have much in the way of expectations for our swim, other than some mild scenery and a way to keep cool. Thus it was a nice surprise for us to find eight different octopuses along the way. That's more than we have ever seen in one day.
We were hoping our neighbors would pack it up while we were swimming, but as sunset approached, we knew we were in for another bright night. At least the wind had shifted, so we were no longer directly downwind of the generator exhaust. Since we weren't in to much of an immediate hurry and we (I especially) was hoping for a last night of relative solitude before heading for the city, we decided to give it one more night here to wait them out.
A relaxed start to 2025 - a couple of days of beach walks and snorkelling
Anchorage location >> On google maps
