Vieques 4-16

We get an early start sailing down to Vieques (pronounced vee-A-kez), with the winds in the upper teens and from the North-East. As soon as we clear the southern tip of Culebra, the waves start rolling pretty good. We are moving mostly with them, so its not too uncomfortable but we are still rolling a bit and there are the occasional slams as the tops of waves crash into the bridge deck between the two hulls. The good news is, we only have about 10 miles to clear the eastern tip of the Vieques, and then we will be partially sheltered from the waves.

We are sailing in about 80 feet of water, with lots of fish pots out – perfect fishing conditions. We put put out both lines. Lucky Louie has had quite a dry spell and the kids have no confidence in him, but I tell them I’ve got a good feeling today. Ricky the rattler, that we bought in St. Barths, was damaged by the spanish mackerel. The leader was cut by its teeth but I cut out the bad part and re-tied the so called ‘uni-knot’. Soon we notice a fish on Lucky Louie and Noah hauls him in. We have another black fin tuna. He’s a little stiff by the time we get him in - I think he was dragging for a while before we noticed, and he drowned.

We round the Eastern tip of Vieques and turn down wind, sailing around 7 knots in some good sized waves. Through a deep section Delaina spotted a few flying fish. They only show up in water deeper than 100 feet. There is a series of shoals running along the south side of the island. They form an 80 foot deep channel running parallel with the shore. It must be a good fishing spot, because the fish pots are everywhere through here. This time Tracy is the fist to holler – fish on! She head towards the line, and I try to slow the boat. This fish hasn’t drowned yet, we can see him fighting back there, and he’s really pulling hard. Tracy screams as the fish takes off, nearly jerking the yo-yo out of her hands and streaming more line out. Then she thinks he’s gone, but soon we see a fish dragging.  As we pull it in, its only half a fish. A shark has bitten in cleanly in two. It was the shark that nearly pulled the spool out of Tracy’s hands. The fish is a kingfish, that would have been between 3 to 4 feet long. We have 20” left, and based on the picture, it looks like the shark got more than half. Remembering how good the kingfish was at Mamacitas the other night, we decide to fillet what we have left. Its still a lot of meat, and the fillets are as big as the whole black fin tuna.

By the time the fish cleaning is done, we are down in front of our intended anchorage of Sun Bay. We pull in to a huge horseshoe shaped bay, and motor in towards shore. Its a beautiful beach, but its at the west side of the bay, and doesn’t offer much protection from the wind and waves. There are moorings on the east side of the bay, but they are a long way from the beach. We saw boats anchored in the next bay, in front of Esperanza, and decide to check that out. There are two large, rocky cays separating the bays, so we motored around them and into the harbour. There were a few boats on what appeared to be private mooring balls, so we dropped the anchor behind them in about 15 feet of water.

After anchoring, we head into town to find a tour of the Bio Bay that is near by. There is one main dock in front of town and as we  head towards it a group of kids jump in with spear guns. One of them directs us around to the other side of the dock and points out the area for dinghies. As we are climbing up on the dock, one of them has a black eel about 2 feet long, that apparently they had just shot. Directly across the street is Blue Caribe Kayaks, and we are able to quickly sign up for tonight's tour.  He cautions us to be sure to lock things up in this area as they do have a high crime rate. Hearing that makes us change our plans a bit. Instead of doing a lot now, we opt to take a quick look around then head back out to the boat to lock things up before heading back in for dinner and the bio bay tour. This time when we go back out to the docks, the kids have speared a huge moray eel. Unfortunately, I think they are just doing this for fun.

We head back in, and have a great dinner at Duffy’s. Tracy eats a little too much, and has to lie down for a while before we head over to Blue Caribe.

The Bio Bay turns out to be amazing.! According to the guide, this is the brightest bio bay in the world. It has the perfect conditions: warm water, high salt content, lots of nutrients, and most important – low light pollution.  We take a beat up old van with wooden benches up the road a few miles and then go off road to reach the water. They have a couple of two person kayaks available, so Delaina and I snag one of those. Tracy and Noah go on singles. We really aren’t sure what to expect, and Delaina is pretty scared. However, as soon as we are in the kayak and she sees her hand light up in the water she is fine, and is asking when she can get in and swim. At first we are all just sticking our hands and paddles in, and watching the glow. Once the guide has everyone loaded on their kayaks he starts taking us out to deeper water where we can swim. He slaps his paddle down a few times, and we can see fish create a light trail like a comet as they zip away. The best comes when we jump in the water. The bioluminescent plants light up as thousands of little dots. As we splash about, not only does the water glow, but you can see tiny dots of light washing all over us. The kids are taking mouthfuls of water (yes, a little gross) and letting the light dots drool out of their mouths.  All of us thought swimming in the dark would be a little creepy, but we are having so much fun with the lights that no one really thinks about it. Soon we have to be back in the kayaks, but we all keep splashing water into the kayaks (and on Delaina) to watch the glow. This tour definitely lived up to the hype, and was truly a once in a lifetime experience.