We definitely wanted to see it, so we sailed there. As we are sailing, we were reading anchorage information on our charts supplemented by Active Captain reports and several guide books, and one theme became quite obvious. Crime! Active Captain has accounts of people getting their dinghies stolen.
This type of crime is quite new to us (we never once locked our dinghy in the Bahamas) and although we are locking our dinghy wherever we go now, it's a major PITA!
So we decided to pull our dinghy out of the water every night and take extra precautions. It was about 9:00 pm that night when we hear a frantic call from a sailboat to a Coast Guard reporting that their dinghy is gone. It was tied behind the boat when they anchored, and now it's gone. Here we go! Not having a dinghy to be able to go ashore is a major deal. It pretty much ruins your cruising plans as you cannot get off the boat!
The following day 7:00 am in the morning, we hear the same sailboat hailing the Coast Guard again. A local fisherman found the dinghy adrift, and took the time (out of his fishing livelihood) to find the owner and tow the dinghy back to them.
What is the moral of this story? There are also nice, caring people living on Vieques, and their voices should also be heard - and yes, lock and tie your dinghies properly!
Ok, I'm off my soup box. We visited the Bioluminescent Bay, I took pictures, just to find out that my camera's mirror is locked up so the camera is unusable - so no pictures. I'll have to find a replacement.
Vieques has very clear water - just like the Bahamas. It was so nice to snorkel, hunt for conch and overall just be anchored in a pristine environment again.
Next on our agenda will be to head back to Puerto Rico mainland. We have a saildrive (It's the transmission and the propeller that is under the boat) that is leaking sea water, so we need to haul Galaxy out of the water and address this issue - so we are heading to Fajardo to take care of this.
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