Spanish Virgin Islands

After spending some time in Charlotte Amalie, we motored west to Culebra which along with the island of Puerto Rico, Vieques and Mona make up the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.  Culebra is one of the must stop islands in the Caribbean.  Motivator has now made three stops in Culebra always anchoring in Ensenada Honda (see archived posting, Culebra, dated April 20, 2013).

In the Virgin Passage we met a couple of cruise ships headed for Charlotte Amalie.  Our AIS was indicating that the first one was turning which was not apparent visually.  A call to the ship verified that both would be turning and that if we held our course and speed we would be clear.

Both passed with plenty of water to spare.

After a couple of peaceful days in Culebra, it was time to move on to Puerto Rico and Puerto del Rey Marina near Fajardo.  Puerto del Rey is one of the largest marinas we have visited.  They offer 24 hour golf cart service to and from your boat, but we prefer to get a little exercise and have been using our bicycles.

Strongarm Electric Winch

As you might have notice in one of the previous photos we were towing our dinghy rather than lifting it to its cradle on the sundeck.  That is because the electric winch in the lifting crane gave up lifting our dinghy (now called El Gordito), but more on that in a subsequent posting.

Old San Juan

Due to a shipping snafu, the new electric winch is coming by slow boat from Nebraska.  So we will do some sightseeing and other boat projects while we wait.