On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean

by Scott B. Williams

  With my water supply running low, I hoped to find a house or some place to refill on the next headland, but the south side of it was deserted. I rounded the cliffs on the point to the north side and saw several house-sized buildings spread out along a steep hillside. It looked like a good place to stop and make a friendly request for water, but when I paddled closer, something was wrong with this idyllic picture. I could now see that a tall chain-link fence surrounded the whole settlement, and there were guard towers strategically placed in the corners of this perimeter. I was looking at prison.

  It was a perfect place for one. The hillside was steep and barren, devoid of vegetation for a hiding escapee, and the only route to freedom was down a rocky cliff pounded by surf. I was close enough to see the inmates working on the grounds in the compound when a voice on a P.A. system warned me in Spanish to get away. I headed north, leaving the headland to make a long crossing to the next one, though I knew from my map that it was part of the Roosevelt Roads Navy base, and I would not be welcome to camp or even stop there.

  When I reached the waters off the base, I stayed well offshore as I paddled past fenced installations. I didn’t want to get in trouble for getting too close – or worse – get blown out of the water for it. Near a series of rocky cays, I came across two young couples eating lunch in an anchored motorboat. The men were both officers on the base, and were taking a day off with their wives for some SCUBA diving and spearfishing. They gave me a cold Pepsi and a tuna sandwich, which I ate as I held my kayak to the side of their boat and told them about my journey. The men showed me on my map the shortest route past the base, and warned me not to stop on any of the deserted islands owned by the Navy, as they were used for SEAL training.

  The wind remained calm, allowing me to make good time the rest of the afternoon, so I was past the government property by 3:00 p.m. I could see the high-rise condominiums of Fajardo ahead in the distance, and could still see Vieques off to the southeast. Directly to my east, I could see Culebra, and the expanse of open water that separated me from it. I headed for tiny Cayo Ramone, just off the coast from Fajardo, planning to camp, but a man in a boat tied up to the beach told me that it was private and suggested another cay just outside the entrance to the marina at Fajardo.

  The aftermath of Hurricane Hugo was obvious everywhere in the vicinity of Fajardo. On the little island where I set up my camp, the few coconut palms still standing had been stripped bare of their fronds and now stood as stark, dying poles. Debris of every description from wrecked boats and buildings littered the shore and was piled high in twisted stacks among the mangroves, the only vegetation seemingly unaffected by the storm. While I was unloading the kayak, the boater from Cayo Ramone stopped by on his way back to Fajardo and shared a lot of useful information about the crossing to Culebra. He pointed east to a cay barely visible 6 miles out and missing from my map, saying it was called Isleta Palominitas, and that it would be a good stopover to break up the 20-mile passage.

  The next morning I paddled into the modern marina at Fajardo, passing the protruding masts and wreckage of several sunken yachts. The docks and buildings in the marina were designed like those in a Florida harbor, and the town of Fajardo had a south Florida atmosphere. It reminded me of the mainland more than any place I had seen in the Caribbean.

  I bought enough food for a week and refilled my water jugs, then left Puerto Rico astern and set out for Isleta Palominitas. The 6-mile crossing against contrary wind took 3 hours. The cay turned out to be a rounded hump of sand with a clump of palms in the middle. Unlike the brown sand found on most of Puerto Rico’s beaches, this sand was white, and stood out in vivid contrast to the green of the coconut palms and their under-story of sea grape trees. I landed on the triangular-shaped island and discovered that it was only about 80 yards in diameter. A half-mile to the north lies its much larger neighbor, Isla Palominas, another private island where uninvited guests are not welcome.

  I unloaded the kayak so I could reseal the leaking rear bulkhead with silicon, and then pitched my tent in the shade of the coconuts. This was such a perfect campsite I also stretched my hammock between two of the palms, knowing I would stay more than one night. This done, I explored the nearby reefs with mask and snorkel, but saw no fish big enough to be worth the effort of spearing. I would be eating tuna out of a can for dinner instead of fresh yellowtail snapper or grouper.

  But that was fine. I spent the afternoon in the hammock, cooled by the 20-knot trade winds, reading and listening to music on my Walkman. The view from my hammock was spectacular at the end of the day. I watched the sky change colors over Puerto Rico until the sun set behind the distant peak of El Yunque, which at 3700 feet, is Puerto Rico’s second highest mountain.

  Waking up on Isleta Palominitas was even better. It rained before daybreak, and the wind was still blowing hard. I walked around the little island drinking in the fresh smell of the rain and the delighting in the feel of soft coral sand between my toes. It was the first true solitude I had found on this second segment of my trip, and it reminded me of the countless isolated cays I had visited the previous winter in the Bahamas.

  But solitude on the little island ended around noon that second day, when a chartered powerboat anchored just off the beach to drop off a young couple and all their camping gear. They unloaded coolers, beach chairs, and duffel bags, and then the boat sped away, making it obvious that the couple intended to stay awhile. Isleta Palominitas is not the kind of island where you can ignore your neighbors, as it is hardly big enough for privacy, so I climbed of my hammock and went over to introduce myself.

  Of course they were dismayed at first to see a bearded, longhaired kayaker walking out of the grove, since they had obviously planned on being romantically stranded on a deserted island for a few days. But a quick narrative of my trip broke the ice, and I helped them carry their gear up to the middle of the island. The couple lived in San Juan and had taken a couple of days off in the middle of the week to escape weekend crowds. Once we had all their stuff moved to a good spot on the island as far from my camp as possible, they discovered they had made a major blunder by leaving their tent poles at home. I helped them rig a lean-to with their tent fly that would keep the rain off, and luckily for them, the wind was strong enough to keep the bugs away. For my help, they invited me to eat dinner with them, saying they had plenty of extra food, so that evening I cooked a potful of rice to go with the pork chops they grilled. My Tony Chacere’s Creole seasoning and their beer topped the meal off to perfection, and I went to bed early to rest for the 16-mile crossing ahead.

  I woke at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to check the weather. The wind was still 15 knots, but the sky was clear, so I decided to at least paddle out and see if I could make headway towards Culebra. I was off the beach by seven, unable to say good-bye to my neighbors, since they were still asleep under their lean-to. Outside the reef, there were big swells, but not breaking seas, and the wind didn’t seem to be impeding my progress too much. I decided to go ahead and go for Culebra. It didn’t take long to drop Isleta Palominitas from sight astern, though even that far out I could still see the high-rises of Fajardo and the mountains of the main island. I set my course for Cayo Lobo, a small cay that my map showed to lie 2 miles west of Culebra. I was hoping I could camp there one night before going on to Culebra itself.

  Two hours into the crossing, I could see Culebra clearly, but still could not find the smaller Cayo Lobo. I drifted for a few minutes while eating a snack and noticed that the waves this far offshore were a lot bigger than I had thought. I was still shaken from my violent capsize, and more than a little nervous about the possibility of rogue waves. I had less confidence in the seaworthiness of the kayak now, simply because I had seen so many firsthand examples of what the sea could do, such as the storm we had weathered in Celebration. When I first paddled out of Tampa over a year before, I had naively thought I could go anywhere and ride out any storm in my kayak. Now I knew the reality of the forces I was dealing wi
th. The open ocean surrounding these Caribbean islands was a lot different than my familiar Gulf of Mexico. I also thought about sharks as my kayak bobbed up and down in the swell. I knew the reality of them now as well, and before starting out this morning, I stashed my loaded bang-stick on the deck where it would be readily accessible.

  After eating to replenish my energy, I refastened the spray skirt and pumped out the water that had sloshed into the cockpit while I was digging around inside for my food bag. I paddled on to the east into growing swells, some breaking hard and forcing me to use bracing strokes with my paddle. In another hour I could see two islands that had to be Cayo Lobo and Cayo Lobito, but I couldn’t tell which was closer. I pointed the kayak to a spot halfway in between them and continued on that course.

  Four hours out from Isleta Palomintas, Cayo Lobo and Culebra didn’t seem to be getting any closer, though when I looked back towards distant Puerto Rico, I could tell I was making progress. I was ready to put this crossing behind me, since it was getting scary as the seas continued to build. The worst thing about long open water crossings is that once you’re out in the middle of one, you’re committed to it. At this point I was a long way from any land, so it was as easy to go on as to go back, and I was exposed to whatever the sea decided to throw at me, as there was nowhere to go if bad weather suddenly approached.

  As I paddled on, I heard an engine behind me and turned to see the Fajardo to Culebra ferry approaching fast, on its way to Culebra. The captain changed course to pass close by me, apparently to give his passengers a look at the crazy fool in the tiny kayak. The ferry slowed down as it came within about 30 yards, its bow crashing through the 8-10 foot breaking seas I was struggling to make headway against. The passengers lining the deck stared and waved, but I was too busy with the paddle to wave back. I can’t imagine what they thought about someone so far from land in such conditions in a narrow splinter of a boat like mine.

  Six hours into the crossing, I stopped for another snack, exhausted from the battle against wind and waves. I was now close enough to Cayo Lobito to see that it was nothing more than a chunk of rock with sheer walls perhaps 100 feet high. Cayo Lobo seemed just as forbidding, but I still had hopes of finding a place to land on it. Beyond these off-lying cays, I could see white sandy beaches on the western shores of Culebra, but that was at least another 3 miles away and I didn’t want to go that far. It took another half hour to reach the lee of Cayo Lobo, and I paddled into rocky shallows where I could see spectacular coral formations 20 feet below. I found a cove-like indentation among the cliffs of the west side on the desolate island, and there was a narrow beach made up mostly of bowling ball sized chunks of rock and coral. A strong surge washing in and out over these rocks made landing there risky, but I decided to try it anyway. To prevent the waves from smashing my kayak against the rocks, I jumped out of the cockpit just as it touched shore and quickly began throwing gear and water jugs up on high ground so I could lift the boat out of the water and carry it over the boulder field. The newly painted hull suffered some nicks and scratches in the process, but I managed to get it to a high shelf out of reach of the sea.

  There was, of course, no place to camp on the rocky beach, so I found a way up a crumbled portion of the cliff and reached a grassy plateau on top. Cayo Lobo was one of the most desolate and forbidding islands I had ever seen. There was nothing tropical about it. The landscape was alien, yet beautiful in a strange way. There was not a single tree and the only vegetation was knee-high brown grass that rippled in the trade wind like the blue sea below. Fat barrel cacti with red blooms stuck up above the grass here and there and grew in dense clusters on the rockier sections. Above the flat area where I was standing, the island rose to a peak on the eastern end, and to an even higher summit on the north end. On this summit were two gray concrete buildings that looked like abandoned military bunkers.

  Getting my camping gear up the steep cliff to the grassy meadow was a chore, but I succeeded, and managed to set up camp and cook in time to explore the island before sunset. I hiked to the summit to inspect the bunkers, which were empty. There was a circular concrete pad nearby, obviously once used for helicopter landings, but now long abandoned and overgrown with grass that sprouted through its cracked surface. The sweeping, 360-degree view from the heliport was inspiring, and from my vantage point 200 feet above the waves that were pounding the cliffs below, I could see Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra – to the west, south, and east, respectively. To the north was nothing but the open Atlantic. The summit of the strange island had a kind of magical feel, starkly exposed as it was to all the powerful elements of nature. I felt new energy while standing there, and I was glad I had stopped on Cayo Lobo.

  In the morning I needed to get off Cayo Lobo and paddle to Culebra, since it was my mother’s birthday and I wanted to call her. I had more difficulty getting the kayak back into the water than I had in landing. As I tried to quickly stuff all the gear into the open hatches, the surge slammed the boat into the rocks and splashed water into my dry storage compartments. I couldn’t get into the cockpit in such conditions, so I had to swim the boat out to deep water and then climb over the stern and enter the cockpit. It was a maddening struggle, and I began my day wet and cursing. The magic of the sunset on the summit of Cayo Lobo had been washed away by this aggravating surge. I was sick of the sea. It seemed that it was personally fighting against me, and had been every day since I had left Salinas. I was sick of hearing the sound of waves smashing against rock, and I longed for the serenity of a campsite on the banks of a gently flowing river like Black Creek. I had grown acutely aware like never before of the sea’s constant movement. It simply never stops. It is relentless, cold, and indifferent to the feeble efforts of a mere human in a tiny kayak.

  It took less than an hour to close the gap between Cayo Lobo and Culebra, and I pulled up on a soft sand beach on a small outlying key called Cayo Luis Pena, about a quarter mile off the main island. This beach would have made a lovely spot to return to and set up camp after my trip into town on Culebra to use the phone and buy supplies. There was shade over part of the beach and good reefs in the quiet, clear water just a few yards out. But to my dismay, there was also a huge sign: NO ACAMPAR, NO FUEGOS, NO MOLESTAR LA FLORA Y FAUNA. I took a bath in the waters off the beach and paddled on to Culebra.

  A narrow channel cut through Culebra from the west side and led to the anchorage in the protected bay on the south end. Near the entrance to this channel was the ferry dock, and a sign welcoming visitors to Culebra. The channel to the anchorage was too small to be negotiated by anything other than a small boat like a dinghy or my kayak. I paddled through and was shocked at the sight of the destruction all around me. Though Hurricane Hugo had hit back in September, almost 5 months before, it looked as if the place had been bombed yesterday. Where houses once stood, there were slabs of concrete piled with debris. Hulls of upside down boats and masts of sunken ones dotted the canal and harbor. A 30-foot sailboat was resting right in the middle of what once had been a waterfront home. Scores of other boats of all descriptions were on the beach and in the streets. Apparently, efforts to cleanup and rebuild were slow to initiate, though sporadic sounds of Skilsaws and hammers around town indicated that some work was taking place.

  There was a dinghy dock just inside the anchorage, near the channel through which I’d entered, and I tied up there and walked into town to look around. I called my mother to wish her a happy birthday and ate a greasy hamburger in a café run by a woman from Florida. She said told me that camping was illegal everywhere, especially on Culebrita, a small islet to the east of Culebra where I wanted to stay before jumping off to St. Thomas. When I told her I had camped on Cayo Lobo the night before, she said I was lucky I did not get caught by the Department of Natural Resources. She also informed me that Cayo Lobo was full of unexploded mines from military training that took place there. If this was true, I had been lucky again, having spent 2 hours walking all over an island that was, in effec
t, a minefield.

  I got the impression that this woman was some kind of hard-core, anti-human environmentalist, and I didn’t believe her warnings about camping being illegal everywhere around Culebra. It seemed that it was her personal mission to keep people from camping there, but whether it was true or not, I was sick of being told I couldn’t camp. The Puerto Rican couple on Isleta Palominitas told me that camping was prohibited in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with the exception of two private campgrounds on St. John where you have to pay exorbitant fees to camp. I had nothing to look forward to there but more trouble, but I knew I could resort to the techniques I had perfected in Florida and camp without getting caught.

  I paddled back through the channel to the west side of the island and headed for the white beaches I’d first seen before landing on Cayo Lobo. The coastline there was deserted – just a strip of sand beach backed by impenetrable scrub forest that covered the small mountain slopes that climbed to the island’s interior. There weren’t any “No Camping” signs in sight, and there was evidence that others had camped there. I pitched my tent in the shade of some sea grape trees and enjoyed an undisturbed afternoon and night.

  Three Puerto Rican guys in two offshore powerboats arrived the next morning, and pulled up to the beach just 100 yards north of my camp. They unloaded a lot of gear, apparently planning to stay awhile. They made no effort to acknowledge my presence, so I ignored them too. But later, after hearing them laughing and yelling all afternoon, I began to get nervous when they started firing a pistol. I couldn’t tell which direction they were aiming, but assumed they were shooting beer cans. But when they finally came over and introduced themselves as Hector, Jose, and Ralph, I realized they were nice guys, despite my first impression. They wanted to know all about my trip, and Ralph, especially, was interested, as he had spent an entire summer alone on Mona Island, living off the reef and hunting wild goats and iguanas, while searching for the pirate treasure that is supposed to be hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of caves there.