Following our third trip to the British Virgin Islands, and having read countless tantalizing tales of charting in much less crowded Spanish Virgin Islands (SVI) in Sail Magazine, we thought it was finally time to check them out.

Skip forward 6 months and two hurricanes, and I thought it would be worth sharing highlights from our adventure last spring, and hope that this post inspires you to visit these lovely islands.

In an attempt to build upon the two referenced articles in Sail magazine, I have written this post to be notes from one charter captain to another.

Background

Over the last 15 years, my wife and I have chartered monohulls and catamarans in the Caribbean from St. Vincent, to Antigua and Barbuda, and over to the British Virgin Islands; we’ve rented boats from numerous charter companies along the way. 

After looking into several charter companies and boat availability, we chose to charter with Sail Caribe.  Since we were traveling with two families, both with young kids, we opted for a Lagoon 45 catamaran.

Day 1

We flew into San Juan Airport and had Sail Caribe arrange transportation from the airport to the harbor.  After picking up our bags, we loaded up the van and headed to their base at Puerto del Rey.

On our way, we had the driver stop at a large grocery store to pick up provisions for the week; for better or worse, we found many of the same brands carried on the mainland.

At the harbor, we were greeted with a very professional operation that loaded up our luggage and groceries into gulf carts with trailers, and proceeded to the boat; we paid to overnight on the boat the evening we arrived.

I like to do this as it usually lets you do the chart briefing that night, and helps you set sail early the next day.

As with most sailing trips, I had done my research and had a pretty good idea about what route I want to take, before heading into the chart briefing.  And as is usually the case, I was presented with addition information, local insights or weather updates, that caused me to alter my plan a bit.

Day 2

We casted off from Marina del Rey, and due to a weather front passing to the north, we decided to sail directly to Isla De Culebra on a beam reach, instead of breaking up this sail by stopping at Isla Palominos.

We reached the western shore near Punta Tamarindo about an hour before sunset, and sailed south east looking at moorings off the coast.  We decided on one just off of Laguna de Cornelio, and hooked up to it; on the whole western shore, there were maybe 3 or 4 boats anchored or moored, so far, much less crowded than BVI.

Day 3

The next morning, we took the dinghy over to Punta Tamarindo for some snorkeling, nothing too extraordinary.  The nicest part was that there was really no one around, the few boats we saw the night before set-off early.

After returning to the boat, we set our course to Ensenada Honda; the sailing was quite enjoyable, with the storm having passed that evening and the wind blowing from the East again. Rounding Punta Del Soldado and heading east, gave us a chance to practice some tacking as we made our way to the entrance of the sound.

As we pulled into the sound, we’d planned to anchor or find a mooring ball in the bay behind the reef at Dakity Harbor (recommended by both our chart briefing and Cruising Guide) but were surprised to find it completely full; and from the looks of it, filled with long-distance cruisers who were hunkered down for a long stay.  We exited this anchorage, and kept looking around Ensenada Honda, but found more of the same, so clearly some places in SVI can be just as crowded as the BVI’s!  We went all the way to Dewey and nothing looked available or appealing.  So, we exited the sound and headed up to Bahia De Almodovar, luckily the distances are short, so we got to the next anchorage quickly.

Bahia De Almodovar was beautiful, we had our pick of mooring balls, although it did fill in a bit towards the evening. The only downside to this anchorage is that there were no restaurants within Dinghy distance, so had an unplanned dinner on the boat, luckily, we ‘over-provision’ so we were ok on food.

Day 4

The next morning, we slipped off the mooring early and had a mini-sail to Isla Culebrita. In the chart briefing, we were told that we were not allowed to take the boat into the picturesque north sound.  I’d really been looking forward to sailing into this anchorage, so this was a bit disappointing; especially since their own website had this as part of their itinerary.  We wound up picking up a mooring ball on the west side of the island, ironically, given the southerly wind that say, the north sound would have made a far better/safer day anchorage.

The hike to the sound is surprisingly long (maybe because we had 4 kids in tow); one cool thing is that the island is overrun with hermit crabs, which the kids loved.  The island does not disappoint, it’s incredibly beautiful.

That evening, we returned to a slightly more crowded Bahia De Almodovar anchorage; and had our third dinner on the boat.

Day 5

We got up early, and set sail for Viequez, luckily the wind moved a bit to the east overnight, and we were able to do a beam reach, and round Punta Este in a couple hours.  Sailing down along the unspoiled southern coast of Viequez was stunningly beautiful, and as inviting as the first couple of bays looked, we were told they were off-limits due to unexploded underwater ordinances.  Several of these bays did have boats anchored in them, but presumably not charterers.

We sailed west until we reached Bahia de Chiva; the first bay available to us to anchor in.  This was one of those picturesque bays described in the aforementioned magazine articles; we really enjoyed having the bay to ourselves, as we were the only boat anchored there.  Since was no development whatsoever, we ate dinner on the boat again.

Day 6

We took our time heading out the next morning, nothing makes you want to stay put like not having any neighbors.  We exited the bay to the west, and started our short sail to Sun Bay.  Unfortunately, we had sail problems, which prevented us bringing the sail down completely, it kept getting stuck about ½ way down the mast. After talking to the Sail Caribe base, they decided to send someone out (apparently this was a known issue with this boat).  They asked me tie up to a mooring ball in Esparanza while we waited for them to arrive.  If you’ve never tied up to a mooring ball while half your sail is up, I don’t recommend it. 

Once we the sail issue was sorted out, I took a load of snorkelers in the dingy over to the southeast tip of Cayo Real; the ocean was incredibly still and a local had strongly suggest we use this rare opportunity to check out this snorkeling spot.  It did not disappoint … beware, this is a very exposed area, so unless the water is calm and you’re a strong swimmer, I do not recommend going here.

We headed into town and re-provision at the Green Store (no, this was not a dispensary), and the owner offered to drive us back to the dock with our groceries, very helpful.  We also used the opportunity to empty the trash. I realize no sail magazine article is going to talk about this chore, so let me talk about it here.  Our chart briefer informed us that trash receptacles were plentiful and free in SVI, but since we weren’t able to overnight in Dewey, we didn’t really come across any other opportunities to dispose of trash until Day 6.

That night, for the first time since we set sail, we enjoyed eating meal prepared by someone else.  We ate at Duffy’s, a nice but casual place; serving seafood.

Day 7

The next morning, the ladies went ashore to sort out a bioluminescence tour for that evening; this is one time you felt like you were in Mexico, with lots of vendors selling you an ‘experience’ and not really sure how to distinguish one operator from another.  They would do well to auction off licenses, this might also make it easier to regulate and reduce the impact on this fragile ecosystem … but I digress.

We still wanted to see Sun Bay, and since we had all our water toys on the boat, we sailed around he point and dropped anchor just off shore.  Sun Bay was probably the busiest beach we’d to been to so far, but that really just meant we saw a couple other people.  The water was crystal clear, and the kids loved the beach, and took turns paddle boarding around.  At the busiest point in the day, there were 2 other boats in this gigantic bay.

That evening, we sailed back, and ate out at fancier restaurant atop the El Blok Boutique Hotel.  The rooftop bar was a fantastic spot from which to watch the sunset.  Unfortunately, it took much longer than expected to have the food come out, so we had to get much of it to go, in order to still make the bioluminescence tour.  Having spent a lot of time in the Caribbean, I should have remembered ‘Island Time’.  If you have a tour that night, even if it’s not for three hours, make sure your server knows!

We hopped on a van and rode out to the bioluminescent bay, during the ride we got a short history and biology lesson about the bay.  We were also asked not to use mosquito repellant, as it is bad for the bay ecosystem; I can say from first-hand experience, you will get eaten alive … do with this information as you please.  The tour was sort of boring, paddled around in glass bottom kayaks, apparently these let you see fish lit up as they swim under you at night, not sure we really ever saw this; mostly the water would light up a little where the paddle hit the water.

Day 8

After spending two days in one spot, we were ready to get going and slipped off the mooring ball early.  The wind was blowing steadily from the East, and we really enjoyed the sailing; down along the rest of Viequez, north around Punta Arenas, and up to Isla Paloninos.  There are a ton of moorings balls on this island, unfortunately, most of them were taken when we pulled in, we thought about anchoring, but to this is at a safe distance from the mooring balls, you wind up in pretty deep water. We decided to grab the last remaining mooring next to the Ferry channel.

I hadn’t had much opportunity to snorkel on this trip, so after reading about the Pyramid reef, I jumped in; however, as you might imagine with a filled anchorage, the snorkeling wasn’t that great, and we had a kayak out there to warn off the occasional jet skier; no this is not a tranquil anchorage.

As I was about to swim back to the boat, I saw everyone on the boat yelling at me pointing to the water.  Fin!  Luckily, I was able to quickly discern that the fin was attached to a dolphin and not a shark; actually, there were lots of fins.  So, in the middle of the most noise polluted harbor I’ve been in, I got to swim with a pod of dolphins.  They were curious and playful, amazing experience.  The dolphins moved down thru the anchorage, inducing a few other sailors to jump in for a swim. 

Back on the boat, we’d noticed that quite a few boats had departed; apparently, Palomino is a popular day trip destination for Puerto Rican ‘mainlanders’.  We used this opportunity to find a nice quiet mooring ball close in.

Settled into our new location, we started to clean up and sent a dingy load over to check out the dinner options on the Island.  Well, it turned out that the restaurant on the island is only open during the day; luckily, we’d re-provisioned in Esperanza and had a few morsels of food left to feed the hungry sailors.

As the adults were starting to contemplate turning in for the evening, we noticed that the beach had become quite populated with boats; many of them playing loud music.  This continued for quite some time, staying quite loud well into the early morning.  Not exactly the idyllic evening we were looking for in our last night at sea.

Day 9

The next morning, we woke to a half-empty anchorage, and set sail back to Marina Puerto del Rey. The sail back was uneventful except for the small fin we saw, this time not belonging to a dolphin.  After relaying our unexpectedly loud experience on Isla Palomino, we were told that a popular radio station had made an impromptu party announcement the day before, and that our experience was not normal.  Nevertheless, with all the day trippers and ferry, I would have probably preferred to stay on Green Beach on the west side of Viequez for the last night; of course, I wouldn’t have had an epic swim with dolphins, but I’m not sure you can really bank on that.  We were actually told by a local in Esparanza, that they often see dolphins in Puerto Real.

Returning the boat was easy, and Sail Caribe was again helpful in unloading the boat into a golf-cart and reloading the van to the airport.

Summary

We had a fantastic experience in the Spanish Virgin Islands, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a less (much less) developed sailing excursion.  In fact, this was probably what most surprised me about our trip, when I hear SVI described as BVI 30 years ago, I thought it meant fewer people; but it also means a lot fewer restaurants and even dingy docks. Be sure to plan your meals and drinking accordingly; don’t expect anyone to come by locals to float by offering you ice or pastries in the morning; you’re on your own, enjoy it.

Epilogue

I am not sure how long it will take Puerto Rico to recover from Hurricane Maria, but given how little we went ashore to eat/provision; it may be a surprisingly short time before you can once again comfortably charter in the Spanish Virgin Islands; and I’m sure the people of Puerto Rico will be more than welcoming. I've been told by the folks at Sail Caribe that their base has been open since October.

Drone video of our trip: https://vimeo.com/249336546