Author: Mort (---.tampabay.res.rr.com)
Date: 02-15-08 08:33
Thanks, Doug and Ali! We sure did have a great time.
It was really cool to sail around the small islands. The owner of the boat (a good friend) has been coming to Culebra for a few years (it's one of his favorite islands in the Caribbean) and he was always curious about the small islands on the west side, so we toured them.
The photo that shows the huge rocks we were climbing on is from that island west of Culebra that is shaped kind of like a saddle (sort of convex) with the two small boxlike cement structures on each end (on the "peaks"). We pulled into a cove that probably never sees a boat or a person. My friend told me that a catamaran can safely anchor there but a single hull would be too risky.
We didn't climb up over the cliff. We just stayed on the rocks. A local told me a couple days later that the island was used for hazardous dumping by the military. I don't know if that's true or not, but I was glad we didn't hike all over it!
Sailing is definitely wonderful, but it's incredibly expensive to own a boat, especially a catamaran. Just before we arrived, the mainsail had been ripped in a storm. Cost: tens of thousands. His new wind generator had also just broken. And while we were on the boat, an impeller failed. Just about every day some new problem comes up. I could never afford it... either the money or the time! But I'm sure grafeful that my friend can!
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