Day Five

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Geo: 18.123, -65.4163

And a few pictures from January 9th, our fifth full day on Vieques. Anne and I drove down to the mosquito pier and walked it for our morning walk. Neat place. Later we all went back to the Camp Garcia area and Red Beach, also called Caracus beach. After swimming and doing some pretty good snorkeling, Anne, David, Sonja and I hiked to an old lighthouse while LeeAnne, Bob, and Maggie stayed at the beach. That hike was a lot longer than we thought it would be and we really did not have the proper footwear for a hike but we did it. Mainly because Anne was so far ahead of everyone that we couldn't call her back - so we just trudged on. Finally made it and I think it was worth it - maybe.

This was the evening that we all took the Bio Bay tour. Unless you have a camera that can take pictures with long exposures, the pictures of the glowing in the water just don't come out. So there are a couple of pictures that we got from the internet just to give an idea of what we saw. This was probably the highlight of our trip, so it was disappointing not to be able to take pictures.

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Photos

The Mosquito Pier
This is a long pier on the north side of the island, just west of the main town of Isabel II. The navy used it for loading and unloading ships that supplied the base that occupied the west end of the island. Today it is part of the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge as is most of the eastern half of the island where the navy had a shore bombardment range. There are a couple of pictures of the pier from the air on the last page of this blog.

Playa Caracus or Red Beach
Maggie was able to ride a boogie board with these little waves!

Playa Caracus or Red Beach
More fun in the surf!

Playa Caracus or Red Beach
We bought lunch at a food truck and ate at one of the beach pavilions before an afternoon of swimming and snorkeling.

Playa Caracus or Red Beach
These clouds looked ominous but it never rained on us.

Red Beach Bay West Shorline
Lee and I scrambled across these rocks for a better view of the point.

Red Beach Bay East Shorline
There were some low-hanging rocks along this edge, giving a cave-like feeling to the area.

Red Beach Bay East Shorline
Another of the low hanging rocks along the edge of the bay. This one was taken by LeeAnne while snorkeling out in the bay.

On Red Beach
Wonder what Maggie was trying to talk David into doing???

On Red Beach
LeeAnne and Bob take a break from snorkeling.

Lighthouse
This old lighthouse began operation in 1896 and was abandoned in 1926. Though in ruins, it remains under the management of the U S Coast Guard.

Lighthouse
Time, weather, and nature have wreaked havoc on the lighthouse, but from a distance, it didn't look too bad.

Lighthouse shoreline
The Puerto Ferro Lighthouse had the perfect location for guiding mariners along the southern coast during the heyday of shipping cattle and sugar.

The Lighthouse Hikers
Three reluctant hikers and one enthusiastic hiker. Guess which one is the latter.

The Bio Bay
This is a picture downloaded from the internet just to show a little bit of what it looked like to kayak on the bay. The blue glow is what the bioluminescence looked like.

The Bio Bay
Another downloaded from the internet just to show a bit of what it looked like.