10/11/2014
Culebra, a Quiet Corner of the Caribbean
By SCOTT SHANENOV. 6, 2014
I was paddling along in my kayak, floating over a coral reef on which purple and yellow sea fans waved lazily in the current, when something broke the surface ahead of me. A snorkeler? No, it was a hawksbill turtle, which seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see it, though not as delighted. The turtle gulped some air, flexed its fin feet, as graceful in the water as the brown pelicans passing nearby were in the air, and effortlessly angled through the green water toward the sea grass 10 feet below.
I was floating off Culebra, a 12-square-mile island in a corner of the Caribbean that was quiet even in mid-January, with news of the polar vortex reaching us like word from a distant, far less habitable planet. During the 80-degree days, my family and I had a choice of a half-dozen spectacular beaches, often sharing a mile-long stretch of sand with a handful of people or with no one at all. During the cool, breezy nights, from our rented house, we could see in the distance the lights of massive cruise ships approaching the nearby island of St. Thomas. We felt fortunate that we were instead taking in this low-key, slow-speed island, 17 miles off the northeast coast of Puerto Rico.
As off-the-beaten-track as it seems, I found the island the easy way: In search of a place to belatedly celebrate our daughter’s 30th birthday, I idly went to Google for “best beaches” and discovered several top-10 lists that included Playa Flamenco on Culebra, which I had never heard of on a few earlier trips to the Caribbean. It was easy to get to: a direct flight to San Juan, followed by a quick trip by ferry or small plane out to the island. Its reputation among travelers looking for a quiet escape seemed to be growing, with additional flights added this year. It was relatively undeveloped, because of its modest size and because tourism gained a toehold only after local protests ended its use as a weapons testing ground by the United States Navy in 1975.
Some historians believe Columbus stopped by Culebra on his second voyage in 1493, and local lore says it was long a hide-out for pirates preying on the Caribbean trade. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge on part of Culebra and some of the tiny out islands that surround it. In recent years, lodging options have steadily expanded, including a campground adjoining Flamenco Beach, a growing number of small hotels and guesthouses and a large selection of rental houses.
With a few clicks, we found a list of two- and three-bedroom houses for rent for about $200 a day, though strict controls on development near the beaches meant few were close to the water. We chose one in the hilly interior that boasted a view of Culebrita, an uninhabited island just to the east topped by an old lighthouse, and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands beyond. It sat atop a rise amid tamarind and acacia trees, in a surprisingly arid landscape, with a deck that offered spectacular stars on clear nights.
We had been warned that we would need to rent a fairly rugged car to get around — even to climb the dirt driveway to the house — so the real estate agents suggested Jerry Beaubien of Jerry’s Jeeps, who cheerfully offered a deal on a well-used model. He scribbled highlights on an island map and told us about the customers who had returned annually for 21 years — renting the very same vehicle every time they came. Even with an increase in first-time visitors, he said, Culebra remained a peaceful spot where few drivers bothered to lock their cars and his biggest problem was renters who lost their keys in the surf.
The rusty Jeep we rented proved its mettle on the island’s roads, on which we quickly memorized the locations of the most daunting potholes, and especially on the roads to the beaches, which could be astonishingly steep and, on unpaved stretches, impressively rutted.
But the payoff of our journey was evident once we set foot on those beaches. Justifiably famous is Playa Flamenco, a curving mile of white sand and turquoise water that draws the biggest crowds and has the only commercial development: a half-dozen kiosks selling mango smoothies, rice-and-beans burritos and all manner of seafood, from conch salad to skewers of shark. One island resident called it “compromised,” since vanloads of day-trippers come over on the ferry, but even Flamenco is unspoiled by East Coast seashore standards.
We tried a new beach, sometimes two, each day. Zoni Beach, on the windy north side, was great for wave-jumping in the white-sand shallows, then retreating to the shade of bushes and small trees to read. Playa Larga, also on the windward side, had bathtub-like sandy depressions in the shallow shelf of an old reef. Tamarindo and Melones had fantastic snorkeling, and we quickly learned the best patches for turtle watching, gazing at the electric blues and yellows of tropical fish, and exploring otherworldly forests of coral resembling giant brains and reindeer antlers. Several shops on the island’s only town (known on maps as Dewey for a long-gone naval commander, a name that appears rarely used) rent snorkel gear and stable ocean kayaks for reasonable rates.
The hilly terrain offered striking views of the island’s large sheltered bay and the ocean around every turn, flawed only by the dozens of signs that oddly informed us in Spanish that we were entering or leaving the tsunami danger zone. No tsunami has done any damage in Culebra in modern history; it looked as if an enterprising sign-salesÂman had captured the government’s attention.
We stopped in at the little Culebra history museum, open only on weekends, and ended up spending well over an hour, watching a documentary in which old-timers recalled the days before electricity, the annual invasions of as many as 7,000 sailors (on an island whose permanent population even today is about 2,000), munitions accidents that maimed and killed islanders, and the successful campaign to oust the Navy. The residual effects persist more than four decades later; while we were there, a Navy team closed Flamenco for a day while it disarmed a bomb that had surfaced from the sand. (Culebra may be the only spot on American territory where the occasional car displays a “Nixon” bumper sticker, in gratitude for President Richard M. Nixon’s decision to end the annual military shelling.)
No one will visit Culebra for the night life, but a half-dozen restaurants scattered around the little town offered excellent seafood and Puerto Rican specialties. Dinghy Dock had tables right on the water, with herds of three-foot tarpon lingering dockside for fish heads tossed from customers, and beautiful fishing bats swooping at the water after dusk. The lobster risotto at El Eden was especially memorable, as was the goat stew at Susie’s. Both were open only a few days a week, and we soon learned to call first. The laid-back Culebra attitude toward commerce was summed up by the sign painted on a gift kiosk that we never saw in operation: “Open some days,” it read, “closed on others.”
On our last day, the wind died down enough to let us paddle rented kayaks a mile or so through choppy seas to Cayo Luis Peña, a hilly little island to the southwest that is part of the wildlife refuge. Following the advice of Ken Ellis of the Culebra Bike Shop, who rents all kinds of other things as well, we checked out the snorkeling in a couple of quiet coves, collected sea glass and hollow coconut shells on the beach, ate a picnic lunch and then crossed back to Culebra, paddling from beach to beach with a couple more snorkeling stops. A final push home into the wind, with big swells crashing against the kayaks’ bows and squalls of wind you could see dappling the water ahead, left us happily worn out. Back at the house, over cold beers on the deck, as the Culebrita lighthouse began to blink in the gathering darkness, we schemed aloud about how soon we might be able to return.
