ST THOMAS, USVI, AND CULBERTA
- Paul Weston
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
On 12th March, Sally and I in Kadash departed Charlotte Amalie, the main port of St Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie harbour, dominated as it is by large cruise ships and a marina for superyachts laying over in the absence of charter parties or their owners, is surprisingly pleasant and well sheltered. We hadn’t seen a seaplane since we were in the South of France, when one flew low over us to scoop firefighting water from the Bay of la Ciotat, but they operate in Charlotte Amalie, taking passengers to other islands. I noticed a crew memeber standing on a float pumping the bilges, and was reminded of Francis Chichester's autobiography The Lonely Sea and the Sky, where he relates that, unknown to him, the starboard float of his deHaviland Gipsy Moth aircraft leaked, the weight of seawater sometimes making it impossible to take off. The cause was corrosion of the float's 'Duralumin' skin. Duralumin is a strong aluminium alloy, but its high copper content makes it very prone to electrolytic corrosion.
On a nearly windless day we motored close to the isolated and forbidding Sail Rock, home to thousands of seabirds, and two hours later entered the winding entrance channel into Culebra’s Ensenada Honda.
Culebra (Snake) Island was an unexpected delight. I had not really thought about the island itself, having concentrated on the navigational aspects of the approach, but had subconsciously assumed it would be a windswept sandy place, isolated in the ocean, somewhere to give temporary shelter.
I realised how wrong I was when we anchored in about 20 feet of water in a mangrove fringed bay, San Ildefonso, at the head of Ensenada Honda. The anchor dug in reassuringly at the first attempt, and we stopped the engine to savour the peace of the most sheltered anchorage we had experienced since we stayed in the Grand cul de Sac Marin in the north of Guadeloupe.
On the first morning we landed the dinghy at a boat ramp, pulled it well clear of the water on its little wheels and left it tied to a park bench while we walked to the Museo Histórico de Culebra 'El Polvorín', about half a a mile up the road. The museum is small – we were the only visitors at the time – but very interesting.
There are some interesting centuries old artefacts, including some ‘ballast bottles’, bottles designed to lay flat in a ship’s hold, and pre-Columbian statuettes. The main purpose of the Museum however, is to tell the story of Culebra’s relationship with the US Navy.
After Spain’s defeat in the Spanish American War, Culebra, administratively part of Puerto Rico, was ceded to the United States. Teddy Roosvelt designated the island as a bird sanctuary in 1909, and large parts of it are still run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Culebra’s population – less than 1,000 people who had been settled there while it was under Spanish rule – mostly lived in the town of San Ildefonso, where we were anchored.
Unfortunately, this was the obvious spot for the naval base, and the town’s unfortunate population was summarily moved to the present capital on the other side of the harbour, about a mile away. Subsequently, the US Navy decided that the shores of Culebra made an ideal gunnery range, and by the 1960s the ranges were intensively used for target practice. This was unpopular with the natives, and they launched a campaign to stop it, combining legal challenges with protests. Eventually they prevailed, and the US Navy moved away, leaving behind a few buildings, one of which, El Polvorín, the Powder Store), now houses the museum.
A few days earlier, Sally had hurt her finger in the jib sheet winch while reducing sail in a squall, and we took the dinghy across the harbour, tied the dinghy up at the ‘Dinghy Dock’ restaurant, and walked to the little hospital, where Sally’s finger was rapidly and effectively treated, with lunch afterwards at a waterside restaurant which served us excellent yuca mofongo – a sort of cake made from cassava - with rice and beans.
We went for several walks on Culebra, landing at the slipway and walking along rough tracks through forest to Playa Brava on the northern, windward side, to swim gingerly amongst the breakers on the huge deserted beach. We took the dinghy to a jetty near the airport in an attempt to clear in with the US Customs and Border Protection, but their office was unoccupied, and we cleared in with a video interview conducted by an officer in Puerto Rico.
The weather became very windy, and we, fair weather sailors that we are, waited for our chance to move on to Puerto Rico. The boat sheered around her anchor, but it was well dug into the mud, and our snug anchorage amongst the mangroves was protected against waves.
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