Because life is short & the world is big
Please sign this petition to help preserve the wonderful Tres Palmas Marine Reserve in Rincon, Puerto Rico. It was created in 2004 to protect Puerto Rico’s rich marine biodiversity, especially its elkhorn corals. It is now threatened by development in the watershed.
Please sign this petition. It only takes five seconds. But it will help save one of the world’s last great spaces.
Here are some images of this glorious place.
Photos provided by 413 Dive Shop.
People go to Vieques for island life, a legendary bioluminescent bay, and fantastic snorkeling. But it is truly a one-of-a-kind experience in so many other ways, whether you’re passing a group of wild horses in the roadway, finding a secluded beach spot to call your own, or watching a tropical sunrise from a beach bar.
If you want to see more snorkeling images, watch our Vieques snorkeling video, at https://youtu.be/r1IfweCRxSg.
Vieques, an island off the eastern shore of Puerto Rico, offers a huge variety of beautiful snorkeling opportunities. Dive in and join us!
Ever wonder where chocolate comes from? It starts its life inside a pod that grows from a plant called cacao on a lush mountainside in a wet forest in the tropics. How do I know? I went there to find out.
We recently visited Finca Hekiti (Finca means “farm”, Hekiti means “one” in the Taino language) for an educational experience in a cacao forest in the Las Marias Mountains west of Mayaguez. In addition to learning the farming practices used on an agro-ecological site to grow and harvest fine-grain cacao, we learn about the importance of agroforestry, permaculture, and nature conservation.
Our tour guide was Ricardo, who purchased these four acres of extremely hilly, lush land with his wife Vivienne in 2014.
Ricardo, a tall, rangy man with a curly beard, taught us that cacao doesn’t grow in neatly tended rows, like you’ll find on a farm, but as part of a symbiotic forest ecosystem. It nestles among other trees, many of them bearing fruit such as bananas and oranges, and plants that all have their own roles. The cacao tree does need to be pruned and maintained, but there is no irrigation. It gets sun and water at the whim of nature, including enduring a six-to-seven-month-long rainy season every year. Ricardo explained how he uses a process called grafting to improve new plants and make existing ones stronger.
He took us on a half-mile hike around the extremely steep and windy agroforest, stopping frequently to show us medicinal plants and explain their purposes (in addition to letting us smell and taste them). We chewed a plant that numbs the mouth, and one that is used for brushing teeth!
We tasted dark chocolate with hints of cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Delicious!
Finca Hekiti doesn’t process the cacao, so we didn’t get to watch him turn the cacao beans into chocolate. That actually takes a long time, including fermenting, drying, winnowing, roasting, and flavoring. He is planning to produce cocoa nibs, which are small pieces of crushed cacao beans that have abundant health benefits. Learn more here.
If you’re ever in Puerto Rico, you can find this tour through AirbBnB Experiences or on the Finca Hekiti Facebook page. The cost was $25 each, plus tax, quite reasonable for 3 1/2 hours.
Why do I love kayaking? It’s hard to explain, but today’s excursion on the Caribbean Sea really has me thinking about it. Let me try to explain.
I have spent the past two summers on Lake Rescue in Vermont, where I spent hours paddling around that 200-acre body of water in the Green Mountains. Nowhere do I feel more at home than tucked into my little orange boat, floating in the middle of Lake Rescue.
But that watery home was always changing, a metaphor for life, I guess. Sometimes I would slip out of bed at 6 AM and waft my boat into the early morning fog, beckoned by the haunting calls of the loons. Sometimes I would escape my family (this was the pandemic, after all) for some quiet time to myself after dinner, and watch the bald eagle father interact with his child as the sun set over the lake.
Sometimes I would kayak fiercely down to the Red Bridge at the far end of the lake, only to see a storm coming in that would soak me as I fought the winds to get home.
On weekend afternoons in summer, I would soak up the energy of my neighbors as some people water skied, another set up a lemonade stand on the family dock, kids dove off platforms out on the water, and a giant inflatable pink pelican bobbed up and down.
Come fall, the people would leave, and Lake Rescue would become a place of peace and solitude. Most of the local birds would leave, but then visiting ones would arrive, stopping for a few days here and there on their way south, sometimes providing a thrilling show.
Kayaking in Puerto Rico is a completely different animal. We’re currently living in the southwest corner of the island, and the Caribbean Sea is an impossibly glorious shade of turquoise, or deep blue, or aquamarine, depending on the angle of the sun and the invisible organisms living in the water. The sea itself is a living being, breathing in and out onto the shore. Its waves can welcome your boat and gently accompany you on your ride, or they can toss you around, throw up obstacles, and remind you that you are a tiny speck on a huge ocean.
Kayak out a ways from shore and the world looks different. The palm trees wave from a distance. The sky becomes huge. Sometimes it grows angry, and besets you with torrents of water. It slaps you and resists you and makes you feel small and powerless.
Sometimes it teases you with beautiful weather, only to reveal its true nature when you’re far from shore and see the black clouds moving in, the ones that were hidden from view when your feet were on land. The waves grow restless. The thunder rumbles. The surging water decides which way you will go. White seabirds glow as they soar above you, reflecting the sun to your right, a stark contrast to the black clouds to the left.
The views are spectacular. Sailboats pose in front of black skies like supermodels strutting down a runway. You want to take pictures, but the sea takes your boat where it wants while you are focusing and shooting. You wrest control back from the sea as best you can — you, an insignificant mortal, vs. the sea, the turquoise lifeblood of the planet.
A rogue wave hits you. You are covered with water. It’s all over you; it’s around you; it’s under you. You are soaked. The sea is still restless. The strong wind pushes your hat off. You are glad you don’t have shoes; your bare feet are connected to the plastic boat. You keep paddling. You are soaked but still upright. You feel invigorated. You lean back in your seat, put your feet up, stop paddling, just experience the moment. Out in the middle of the sea. Water all around you. Sun above; storm approaching. You are part of the ocean. You are inside the water. You are physically connected to the planet.
One paddle, two blades. Dip left, dip right, left, right, one fluid movement. Get a rhythm and fly across the water. Or not.
This is why I love kayaking.
Who would expect to see so many kinds of cacti on a tropical island? We were intrigued to view the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea from a desert trail in Guánica State Forest, on the southwest end of Puerto Rico.
A United Nations International Biosphere Reserve, the Guánica State Forest, also known as Guánica dry Fores , is one of the most extensive tropical dry coastal forests in the world, totaling around 9,000 acres. It’s a paradise for birdwatchers, and we saw many. Read all about it.
Enjoy Bob’s video of our 3.7-mile hike along the rocky coast and through the desert.
Our day spent hiking and beaching also presented us with captivating flora and fauna! Lisa took a few pictures of her favorites, especially the red-billed oystercatchers. She guessed the name after watching them in action!
A hike in the nature reserve around the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse (Los Morrillos) served us up spectacular vistas, with stomach-dropping white and red cliffs, fascinating rock formations, crystal-clear Caribbean Sea, and even cacti!
We found the loop trail, part of the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, on the All Trails app. It took us around the rocky coastline of this peninsula, then past the salt flats, before dumping us out on Playa Sucia, or La Playela, a gorgeous beach.
It’s located on the southeastern point of Cabo Rojo, on the Morrillos Peninsula, in the southwest corner of Puerto Rico. Learn all about this destination at the Discover Puerto Rico website.
Make sure you come between 9 AM and 5 PM, because the park rangers lock the gate!
When Bob and I lived in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, the US Navy owned a large chunk of Vieques. It had bought 22,000 acres, or about two-thirds of the island, from the native inhabitants in the 1940s, and used 8,000 acres on the western end of the island as a naval ammunition depot until 2001, when the property was returned to the island. You can read the history here, including Vieques residents’ health effects from the Naval presence and protests to force the Navy to leave the island.
But long story short, despite negative effects, the long US Navy presence meant that huge swaths of the island were never developed. So today it is the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge, considered one of the most ecologically diverse refuges in the Caribbean and the largest wildlife refuge in the region.
It has beautiful, undeveloped beaches and stellar snorkeling, and a few hiking trails. (Unfortunately, a large chunk of the land is not open to the public because of the danger from possible encounters with unexploded ordnance, which the Navy is slowly cleaning up.)
Snorkeling and pristine beaches are the island’s main draws, and we came with our own gear, prepared to take advantage of both. With only 2½ days to explore, we could barely taste the multitude of beaches started with Chiva Beach (formerly the Naval Base’s Blue Beach), which had a bit of dried sargassum along its shoreline but was still lovely, with clear turquoise water and reefs just a short swim out. There were a number, but we did the best we could! The Vieques Insider website was a great resource for the best places to pull on our fins and masks and wade into the water.
Here are the highlights:
Chiva Beach: We passed a number of individual entrances to the beach, numbered, with parking for just one or two cars at each. We finally chose #10 and settled ourselves in the shade among the mangroves, when a huge iguana pooped spectacularly from a branch behind us. How often do you get to witness that? A little lizard also watched us curiously, and many majestic pelicans flew by.
I snorkeled there and saw some lovely coral and a multitude of undersea life. On my way back into shore, I found myself in the magical middle of an enormous school of dancing silverfish.
Caracas Beach: Caracas is a larger beach on a bay with lovely, calm water for swimming, and even parking, shelters, and even a bathroom, something the smaller beaches were lacking. There we relaxed on a concrete strip among the trees and watched the visiting horses wander around and forage in the garbage.
In fact, we ran into horses everywhere we went. Also, weirdly, a wild pig.
Esperanza Beach: Esperanza Beach, near the town by the same name on the south coast, is primarily a local hangout, a little grittier than the others because of the parking lot behind us in which men smoked weed and teens hung out, but we enjoyed its charms. Its most striking feature is a deserted concrete pier which provides an eerie, fascinating snorkel experience. You can dart between the coral-encrusted pylons and watch fish swimming in and out among old anchors and piles of thick rope abandoned on the seafloor below. I almost ran into huge purple jellyfish a couple of times. People claimed sea turtles hang out underneath the pier, but we weren’t lucky enough to see any. Kids jump off the pier into the water on weekends.
Black Sand Beach: We had to hike for six-tenths of a mile through lush woods to reach Black Sand Beach, though the GPS first took us down a long, incredibly bumpy, narrow dirt road to a cliff near the beach. Black Sand Beach is so named because it boasts volcanic sand, but we found it to be overhyped. The walk was lovely, but the beach itself was not a place where you would want to hang out, and the so-called “black sand” just made the area look dirty. However, the views of the sea crashing into the cliffs were spectacular. Here’s a video of the beach.
Pata Prieta Beach: Pata Prieta, not far from Chiva, offered some gorgeous snorkeling along the rocky east side of its cove. Among the vast quantity of sea life we encountered while swimming in shallow water above the coral reef, I saw a small barracuda and even an octopus! He was hiding in plain sight on the seafloor, camouflaged among the rocks and plants. I only recognized him because I had seen the documentary My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. He crept along as I watched him, before finally deciding to launch himself and swim away, shedding his rocky camouflage and revealing himself to be a translucent orange swimmer.
The highlight of our trip was the touristy experience everyone needs to have, a Bioluminescent Bay Tour. We went out in transparent double kayaks the first night to see the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world with Taino Aqua Adventures. Our guide, Kevin, took us out into Mosquito Bay in the darkness of a waxing moon under mercifully cloudy skies, and the water shimmered green, blue, or white (depending on your vision) with every stroke of the paddle. The water also sparkled underneath the boat as we moved through the inky water. It was magical!
But actually, it was science. Kevin explained that the luminescence in the bay is caused by a microorganism, the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium Bahamense, which glows whenever the water is disturbed, leaving a trail of neon blue.
Sorry, because of the darkness and the fact that our hands were busy paddling, we were not able to get any photos or video. You can see what it looks like on Taino Aqua Adventures’ website.
We have so much more to share, but I think you are just going to need to visit Vieques yourself!
Here are some resources to get you started:
Here’s an important Spanish word for you to learn if you’re going to read our blog while we’re in Puerto Rico: Playa. It means beach. Puerto Rico is covered with gorgeous beaches — the northern ones facing the Atlantic Ocean and the southern ones the calmer Caribbean Sea — and we want to visit as many as we can while we’re here! There are endless varieties of sand-and-sea to be found on the Isla Encanta, each one more beautiful than the last.
We pulled out Google Maps and saw that Playa San Miguel was just one exit or so east from our condo in Luquillo on Rte. 3. We packed up a cooler with drinks and snacks, grabbed our beach chairs, towels, and sunscreen, and headed out.
Rough Road
To get there we had to drive our low-hanging rental five miles down a dirt road that seemed fine at first … until we hit the puddles. Small ponds might better describe them. Then they became lakes. I help my breath as Bob slowly navigated the Corolla along the edge of each, praying we wouldn’t get stuck in the muck in the middle of nowhere. Where was Bob’s Toyota Tacoma when we needed it? (Back in a parking lot in Manchester, NH.)
Bob commented that when we lived in PR in the 90s, he bought his guagua (truck, specifically a Jeep Cherokee with a cow-catcher grill on the front that Puerto Ricans call a “rompamonte”) so we could easily navigate these types of roads, but back then, I was working so much that we never did. This is part of the reason we have returned. Same adventurous spirit, more time — but sadly, no guagua.
The long road traversed the La Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noreste, a nature reserve and a prime ecotourism destination.
Somehow we made it to an entrance to a beach, where we saw a sign that told us, essentially — don’t drive on the sand, pack our your litter and don’t mess with the sea turtles that nest here.
We parked at the edge of the road, walked through a break in the trees, and found … paradise.
An Empty Beach
The sand was golden, stretching for miles in both directions, and the beach was completely empty of humanity. Three pelicans flew over, followed by a snowy egret. Little birds scuttled along the sand. To our right, a large, low-hanging tree with fat round leaves provided the perfect shady spot for setting up our base camp, which we did.
Keeping It Clean
As I walked down to the ocean, I found a bit of litter wrapped up in the brown seaweed that had washed onto the sand with high tides. I picked up a paint can from the debris and began filling it with plastic cups, a mask, food wrappers, plastic forks, and more evidence of mankind. The disadvantage of an unmaintained beach is that it’s not cleaned regularly, and this debris was clear evidence of the litter that’s filling our oceans. I decided that one way to leave my mark on this island is to leave it cleaner than I found it. I filled another plastic bucket found with trash as well, and will bring trash bags next time.
Glorious Beach
But despite the litter, San Miguel Beach was perfect. The tide was rougher than in the bay where we are staying, waves crashing loudly onto the sand. I was wearing a bikini, which normally makes me nervous about bodysurfing, but no one was around, so who cared if the top or bottom got pushed down? We bodysurfed for a long time, laughing. It was amazing! I felt like a kid again. We were aware of a slight rip current, so we kept an eye on each other and made sure we didn’t go too deep.
Alas, lunchtime came too soon, and it was time to go hunting for food. Next time we will pack a lunch, because it’s not very appealing to drive this long, wet road twice.
We definitely plan to return to Playa San Miguel, many times. But not today. It poured last night, and our car would likely sink into one of the lakes on the dirt road and disappear.
We also need to learn more about this Ecological Reserve. We’ll keep you posted!
I had a fascinating encounter with the bald eagle family of Lake Rescue this morning. They live there year-round, and have been residents for years, entrancing the human residents of this lovely lake in southern Vermont.
When I came around the bend in my kayak at 6:45 AM, the mother eagle was waiting for me in a tall tree nearby. Can you spot her?
I checked the nest: empty.
Then the baby popped up.
Mom immediately flew over to him.
She landed on a nearby branch and the two interacted for a long time.
It’s so awesome to start the day with this!
