A Trip to Culebra

After working every weekday since arriving in Puerto Rico (including 2 holidays), we decided to take a short vacation for three days (we’ll work on the holidays next week; there are apparently 4 holidays in July in PR).  Our destination was the island of Culebra, between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The island is part of Puerto Rico, and is accessible by ferry from the Fajardo (about 40 minutes away from the field station).

On Wednesday morning, we all got up early (the entire tree census team and our field tech) and left the field station around 6:30 with one of the grad students driving us to the port. After getting dropped off, we got in a line that wrapped around the block from the ticket window. After about 15 minutes, an announcement came over the loudspeakers that the 9:00 ferry was completely sold out, and that the next ferry would be at 3:30 that afternoon.

We didn’t really want to wait around at the ferry terminal for so many hours, so we considered our options. We could take a ferry to Vieques (another island off the coast), but we didn’t know much about it, and it would be more difficult from a logistical perspective to go in blind. There were a bunch of taxi drivers going about the crowd, telling us that we could fly to Culebra from nearby Ceiba Airport. We settled on this, since the cost wasn’t too bad (though considerably more than the $4 ferry ride).

We got in one of the taxis and drove along down the road towards the airport. After a while, we ended up on these empty back roads. We were getting a bit nervous about the reputability of this airport (let alone our taxi driver), when the terminal came into sight. We payed the driver, grabbed our gear, and walked into the terminal. The building wasn’t anything fancy, essentially just a big warehouse-type building with a few rows of seats and a ticket window. However, the building had air conditioning, which was fantastic on this rather warm day (we’re a bit spoiled up at the cool mountain field station). We signed up for the wait list with our names and our weights, then weighed our bags and sat down in a row of seats. As we were waiting, we heard the distinct rush of rain on a large warehouse-type roof and looked outside to see it pouring. Probably a good thing we weren’t waiting at the ferry terminal after all. It stopped after a few minutes, as it usually does.

Eventually, our names were called and we went up to buy our tickets. We then headed over to the other side of the terminal with windows looking out on the runways. There wasn’t any sort of security check or hassle like at a major airport in the states; we simply walked over and sat there. After a bit more time, we were called again and we walked out to our waiting plane.

Now, this was no huge 747. We were to take an 8-passenger plane across the ocean to the island. We were given assigned seats based on our weight, so the plane would fly level. Packed like sardines with seat belts fastened, we took off at a gallop towards the runway. With so little plane traffic, there was no need to slowly taxi and build up speed. The pilot simply started going at highway speed around the airport roads to the runway. We took off without issue and got to look down as the land was shrinking away below us. Then, we were over the water. It was the beautiful blue color that you always see in those pictures of Caribbean beaches. After about 15 minutes, we were approaching Culebra. Looking out the front of the plane, all I could see was a few mountains and no sign of an airport. We steered right towards a mountain, then banked a bit to the right to pass between it and another. At this point, the runway finally came into view, and we hit the tarmac softly.

We left the airport (nothing more than a runway and a small building that we were through in 30 steps) and headed into town to rent bikes. I saw several neat birds along the way including a pelican, some doves, and even a frigatebird (more on the birds in another post). We got to the bike shop, talked to the owner for a bit, and then left with 6 bikes to get us up to the campsite at Flamenco Beach. After riding back past the airport and over a few small hills, the heat and the intensity of the sun, combined with the weight and discomfort of my backpack, left me feeling pretty beat. I don’t know exactly how warm it was, but I’d estimate it to have been somewhere between 90 and a billion degrees. We arrived at the campground, checked in and headed to our campsite at the far end of the beach. After setting up camp, I promptly slept away most of the afternoon and evening in the shade. Despite my ability to deal with walking to class when it’s -15, I don’t have a high tolerance for the heat and humidity. After dinner and making a small campfire, I was off to try to sleep on a uncomfortable sleeping pad in a way-too-hot-and-stuffy tent.

Following a less-than-restful night, I decided to stay around camp and hang out, while some of the others went to another beach on the bikes. I walked out from our campsite to the other side of the trees to see this:

This picture was actually taken later, when it was cloudy, but I assure you that the scene was even more grand than this. The water was that wonderful Caribbean blue and some hills rose up on the other side of the bay. Turning to my left, I saw a large chunk of metal some distance off.

Apparently, the U.S. Navy used the island for practice military exercises from World War II through the 1960s. They left a few tanks on the beaches, which have become strange rusted relics. There was another tank further inland by the campsites.

I walked up and down the beach for a bit with my camera, taking some pictures of the wildlife and the bay, before heading back to the campsite to hide in the shade and take a nap. On the edge of our campsite, and lining the dunes along the beach, were some coconut palms with plenty of coconuts in them.

The following day, we took down our campsite and biked back to town to return the bikes, get lunch, and get to the ferry. We got lunch at this little restaurant/bar behind the bike shop right on the edge of the water. There were several large fish swimming around (we were told they were tarpon), but sadly I didn’t have my camera accessible.

After lunch, we walked down to the ferry terminal to wait around before the line started to buy tickets. For whatever reason, you cannot buy tickets until an hour before the ferry leaves, so we waited around from 2:30 to 4:00 to ensure that we got tickets. We bought tickets (pretty reasonable at $2.25 per person) and got in line to board the ferry, which hadn’t yet arrived. The ferry arrived around 5:00 full of passengers visiting Culebra for the 3-day weekend. Since it had started raining just before they disembarked, they were a little slow to do so, waiting under the overhang for the rain to slow down. Finally, after they had all left, we were allowed to board.

We got seats near the exit (so we could get off quickly in Fajardo) and the ferry was soon underway. A few minutes in, a few of us got up to explore the boat a little and see of we could get outside. We found our way to the stern where we had boarded and stood at the railing, watching the ocean fly by ahead of us while breathing in the exhaust from the engine. It was a pleasant trip nonetheless, and after some careful repositioning, I managed to get away from the brunt of the exhaust. A bit over an hour later, we were approaching Puerto Rico, so we returned to our seats, gathered our things, and headed off the boat once it reached the dock. After a bit of searching, we located the van and our grad student friend who would take us back to the station.

Overall a great few days. I’ll post plenty of pictures in my next post of the organisms I saw and had my camera on me at the time.