Saturday 30 March, SVI day 6, Culebrita: Tortuga Bay invaded by power boats.
Cloudy Bay was pitching all night, but thankfully not rolling. In the middle of the night I get up and lookout. The rest of the boats in the bay have swung side-on to the swell and are rocking like crazy. Thank goodness we dropped a stern anchor last night to hold us into the swell.
By breakfast time all those rocking yachts have left. We know how they must have felt enduring a night like that. They are surely heading for more tranquil anchorages to catch up on sleep. So for a moment there, it was just us and Gale left in the bay.
But it’s Saturday morning and from 9:30am a steady stream of motor boats arrive, most passing close to us with horrible blaring music. It looks like this is a popular boating destination from Puerto Rico for the weekend. Within an hour the bay has over 30 boats anchored with multiple sounds of blaring music depending on which way you turn your head. We are quite intrigued by it all, and thankful we are anchored quite far from that madding crowd near to the beach.
By 1pm we count over 70 boats in the bay and still more coming. Most are anchored with stern lines taken to the shore. And not small boats either. A lot of open sports fisher boats with up to 3 outboards on the back and several huge ocean-going sports fishers, the type with huge fishing rods hanging off every which way and multiple steering decks high in the air, among a framework of aluminum tubing.
We see many come in oblivious of all the turtles swimming near the surface as they come up for air. We observe many right in front of boats as they arrive and diving down just a split second before being hit. Poor them. And this is a prime turtle egg laying beach. Yet right now they couldn’t get through the boats to the beach even if they tried! It’s like an invasion here. Hopefully they will all go back to Puerto Rico before it gets dark – the boats that is, not the turtles!
Early afternoon Christian and Eva come over, saying they want to dinghy away from this place, to snorkel. So we join them and dinghy out of the bay and around to the west side of the island. Here we snorkel over sand and shallow reef, in peace. Only two other small boats anchored near the beach here. The coral is not great, but enough life to make it interesting.
Back on Cloudy Bay we run the generator, make water and Oana prepares dinner for this evening. It’s our turn to have Christian and Eva over so we are serving them Romanian ciorba (soup) and pasta.
We had planned to have drinks on the beach before dinner, but while most of the noisy boats have left, there are enough left to discourage us from that plan. It’s not until 7pm that the last of the music stops and there are just a handful of the larger boats left by the beach. And thankfully all quiet. Just the sound of the breaking waves again. Bliss.
Dinner aboard goes well, cheerful chatting away on all matter of topics from Pacific islands to trips to Romania. Again, nice to share our evening with others. But it’s not a late one. By 9.30pm Eva is wanting to go back so we spend the rest of the evening relaxing (once washing up done!) and listening to nature all around.
The swell seems less now so sleep should be easy tonight.
