Isla Caja de Muertos

 

Dream Walker about to pick up a mooring ball near the dock

 

Dream Walker and Wayward Wind moored off of Isla Caja de Muertos

 

Beautiful healthy deep purple fan coral... the most vibrant I've seen

 

05.04.13

 

Fan-fishing*-tastic!!!  (*fish viewing, not eating, that is)  One of the best of our trip!  We are moored at Isla Caja de Muertos where we are enjoying the unusual low – super light winds from the south with virtually no swell or wind chop – perfect conditions for snorkeling.  After we arrived, rested and waited for the ferry to take the fifty or so daytime tourists back to the mainland, Stan and Elizabeth dinghied us around the north side of the island where we dropped the little mushroom anchor and snorkeled away through the reef.  The water was amazingly clear and we saw many colorful reef fish and soft and hard corals.  We were in an area where the tourists don’t usually go, so the reef looked quite healthy.  I had a blast snapping photos.

 

Hello, fish!

 

Beautiful blue!

The staghorn coral was abundant.  None of us had ever seen such “fields” before.

 

Staghorn coral

Elkhorn coral

The elkhorn coral was healthy and thick.  I tried taking a video just for fun.

 

 

 

Approaching the island

 

After awhile, we continued dinghying around the island.  Isla Caja de Muertos is a small island about ten miles off the south coast of Puerto Rico.  The literal English translation is “Isle of Box of the Dead,” but gringos call it “Coffin Island” so named because of its casket-like shape.  It is dry, very dry, on this island which supports large cacti and scrub brush.  On one end is a rock precipice where a statue of the Virgin Carmen, the patron (or is it matron?) saint of fishermen, is located.  Apparently there are also petroglyphs, but those are not accessible to the public.  Nearby is the visitor center and small museum.  We did our best to translate the Spanish signs.  On the windward side of the island is a protected turtle hatching ground.  We didn’t see any turtles, but we were glad to see a fenced off area just for them.  On top of the isle’s central hill is a lighthouse and trail that leads to caves.  Stan and Elizabeth had hiked this trail last year when they were here.  We were planning on doing that this morning but opted instead to go snorkeling again since the conditions were so good. 

 

Patron Saint of fishermen, Virgin Carmen

 

South end of island with turtle nesting area - white spec inside round cave is statue of Virgin Carmen

Visitor Center

  

After our snorkel yesterday, Stan and Elizabeth joined us aboard Wayward Wind for supper.  They had caught a 2 ½ - foot barracuda and we had caught a 2-foot crevalle jack.  Dave sautéed them to perfection and, along with Elizabeth’s yummy cole slaw, we enjoyed a simple and sumptuous meal as we viewed a dramatic sunset from our cockpit.

 

Whoa!

Since the conditions were ideal, we adjusted our plans to have one more day of snorkeling.  After listening to our weather guru, we dinghied over to land and had a short walk around the south end of the island.  We then went to our boats, suited up, grabbed fins and snorkels and dinghied around to the east side.  We saw a couple of rays on the way.  We went to the snorkel area where the visitors go to follow the snorkel trail which is only about 8 feet deep and has informative plaques about the marine flora and fauna.  It was nice to be able to identify the coral and plants, but as Elizabeth said, “I noticed the fish were not at their stations.”  She also said that she was tempted to move one of the conchs over to the conch plaque.  Elizabeth and Stan are great conch collectors, but they fought their urge to grab the several enormous conch that we saw in the protected area.  We also spotted a large lobster attempting to hide.  Elizabeth said that it could not back any farther into its hole, and were it not in the protected area and had she her gloves and stick, it would have made a nice meal.  Lucky lobster. 

 

Conch info sign and

...the real deal

Lucky lobster!

While the three of us drifted and snorkeled, Stan swam back to get the dinghy to bring it nearer.  While at the dinghy, he spoke with RRRRamon, (roll that “R”!) who drove the snorkel tour boat for the visitors to the snorkel trail.  Ramon told Stan that it was the clearest he’d seen the water in over two years.  We are so fortunate to be in this beautiful isle and reef at this time.  It is amazing that such unspoiled beauty is only ten miles from the Puerto Rican mainland.  Many Puerto Riquenos visit the isle on the weekend for a day visit.  Today, after they left, we were the only two boats here.  So peaceful.  Below are more photos of our snorkeling.  And by the way, Stan and Dave both saw a blue tip shark.  I saw a three-foot baracuda. 

 

A large lurker...baracuda

School of Blue Tang

 

Not sure what these little yellow fish are

 

Fan coral and other soft coral

 

Cool coral
 

 

 

Elizabeth and Stan posing nicely by the dolphin statue...
 

 

and Linda and Dave...C'mon, Dave, quit mesing around!

 

That's better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05/08/13 Update -- We're now in Boqueron, Puerto Rico, on the west coast waiting for the next weather window to cross the Mona Passage to Samana, Dominican Republic, hopefully leaving here on Saturday with our two buddy boats, Manatee and Dream Walker.  More later.  Off to do laundry and provisioning.