In search of the Perfect Beach

Gringo Beach, otherwise known as Playa Gallito

So four days after cramming as much information in as we could about the island, the property and its functioning, Eric finally packed up and we dropped him at the airport. It was now just going to be us and whatever our creative imaginations, and luck, would have for us.

We were now free to explore the island at our whim and so that’s just what we did. The first thing Chase wanted to do was stop at Gringo Beach for a quick dip to refresh himself. This is a little beach between the airport and the W Resort (the only resort on the island), so named apparently because of the white guy that used to keep it clean and tidy. This was a draw, but also was its accessibility.

Road 200 runs beside the Atlantic shoreline here and you can pull into a dirt road that stretches into a small promontory that’s just big enough to fit a few cars. Gringo beach sprawls out to the east of this. It's not a big beach, it's just a narrow strip of yellow sand book-ended by rocky outcrops; not too impressive but it was a beach nevertheless and was nice enough to take a dip. Not only that, it was convenient, no one was there, and we could leave the car right on the promontory, in plain sight, so I didn’t have to worry about anything happening to it. 

Above image from http://www.vieques-island.com/

But we wanted to find those amazingly beautiful beaches we had seen in pictures representing Vieques (like right). Where were they?

We needed to go to the Caribbean side of Vieques, which was on the southern side. This area here wasn’t sheltered enough; the strong trade winds that we had experienced in San Juan also seemed to batter this shore. We weren’t going to find any calm, crystal clear waters in this environment.

According to the free fold out map you’ll find all over Vieques, there were a bunch of beaches along the southern side, and we hoped upon hope this was where we were going to find those perfect beaches. So we headed for Esperanza, that charming little town on the opposite end of the island.

To the east of the Malecon in Esperanza in front of a huge dirt parking lot, the beach of Esperanza unfurls dramatically. It wasn’t that it was a perfect beach, but it was surprisingly charming after the dirt junk yard that concealed it from the road. 

It had an allure like the town it belonged to. It’s slender beach was dirty yellow and stretched out in either direction interrupted by a small boat launch and two piers at either side protruding into a cerulean sea, one long, the other quite short. A handful of tiny colourful boats idled lazily in this sheltered area protected by a grassy island (Cayo de Afuera) a hundred or so metres out. This scene resonates with the essence of the historical fishing village it is.

If only that ugly parking lot didn’t break the illusion. It would make for a nice grassy park area, shaded by the trees that are already there and the colourful food shacks that are situated to one side of the lot, don't you think?

One other point of interest was this statue we found of a bust standing sentinel by the boat launch. It is a memorial to Ángel Rodríguez Cristóbal. He was a Puerto Rican native, a Vietnam Vet., and an activist who became involved with the Viequense fishermen in their fight against the presence of the United States Navy in Vieques. 

After his arrest in May 1979, along with twenty other protesters who were participating in an act of religious civil disobedience on a beach in an area occupied by the navy, he was sentenced to six months in a prison in Florida. The abrupt, sad end to this story is that he was murdered in his prison cell only a month before he was to be freed, allegedly beaten to death by federal officers. While the authorities claim it was a suicide[1], locals believe he was assassinated by the US government for defending the territorial integrity of Vieques[2]. He was 33 years old.

The statue is bequeathed by The Fishermen’s Association of Vieques and translation of some of the inscription in Spanish reads:

“When the cause is just, there is no need to fear.” And,
“…Upon his assassination, he enters the pantheon of the immortals whose deaths defines a piece of Puerto Rican history.”

But back to more trivial matters: the beach quest. Esperanza beach was nice, but the water was not the clear, turquoise-tinged liquid we were looking for, nor the sand powdery fine and white. After testing the waters, we moved on. 

What about Sun Bay?We had passed the entrance to this beach on our first day here, and it was just east of Esperanza. As one of the most popular beaches on the island surely it had something to offer.

The full name of this reserve is Balneario Sun Bay. There are a number of beaches around Puerto Rico with this title and it basically means they are public beaches, that is, they are controlled by the Department of Natural Resources and the Municipal government's Department of Sports and Recreation. The name is somewhat misleading I think, it should really be called a "private beach" as it is fenced off and access is controlled by a gate where you must pay a fee if you go by car (which was unmanned this day). But it also means that it is maintained and contains public facilities like toilets and life-guard stands, and you can even camp there. This piqued my interest mainly because it must mean it was clean, which seems to be a rarity around this place.

We drove into the gate down a stretch of road that passed a large grassy parkland speckled with horses grazing and then continued passed a large car park till we seemed to be running along a country road with a charming wooden fence. We finally came to the beach and continued on a sandy path parallel to the shore. The road continued down the entire length of the beach and there was more parking along here; this made me happier again, for as you can see, that was my main priority - making the car visible.
 This was all looking much better.

This bahia, as beaches are called in Spanish, was a lot more attractive, the sea was much more opalescent in colour, though the sand wasn't quite the stuff of etheral dreams. Contained within a large protective bay this expansive beach stretches far and wide along it's arc. It is fringed by an abundance of tropical plants such as palms and sea-grape bushes which are intermittently speckled with funky looking life-guard stands. Two cays sprout up in the middle of the bay like turtle shells and in the distance to the west the only ‘real’ mountains on the island make an appearance, including Mount Pirata, the tallest peak.

From this viewpoint Vieques started looking more like the tropical island it was supposed to be, and this made for a good start. If nothing else came along this would do quite fine, though it was a little disappointing to find that this 'real' beach was a lot further from our house than we had anticipated. But still it was there, and on a nice hot day it was sure to be rewarding.


However, today unfortunately, the weather was turning and the sky was getting dark, making it not really conducive to beach-going. The clouds rolling in were really dramatic looking, as these pictures show, and while we were happy that it looked as if it was finally going to rain we weren’t really up for getting stuck in a downpour. So with our days mission somewhat complete we set off for home.

And the most interesting thing about it, that you won't get just anywhere, are all the horses just hanging out about the place grazing: in the park, along side the beach - even in the middle of the road as we found out when trying to leave...

But this was only the beginning of our quest to find the perfect beach. We'd seen Gringo beach, Esperanza Beach and Sun Bay. Next on our list was Red and Blue beach in the Wildlife Refuge on the south east of the island.

To be Continued...

Sunrise, Sunset

During the four days we spent with Eric before he left Chase would get up early to learn the ropes before the heat of the day set in.

One of the most important things at this time, with the drought thoroughly entrenched, was watering the orchard and garden, and thankfully, Chase took primary control over that one while I got to sleep in.

So at the crack of dawn Chase would go down to the orchard and spend an hour or so watering the trees. It's a painstaking procedure, as each tree needs to be watered by hand,  enough so as to break through the bone-dry surface (heard of an irrigations system?), and at a rough estimate there's about forty trees to get through. Working for just an hour a morning he can't possibly get through the whole orchard in a day so instead he does a row each day until the whole orchard is watered and then the cycle starts again. Fun. Soon enough, he figured to take a book with him down there to curb his boredom.

Chase would eat breakfast somewhere during the sun's arrival with Eric who also got up persistently early. One morning they ate in town at the local bakery, which Chase informed me was pretty good (and, of course, I look forward to trying it), and another morning they left me some of their mornings tidbits, including some freshly sliced guanábana. Remember this spindly fruit, the soursop, that I mentioned grew on the property in the last post? This is what it's flesh looks like, which looks somewhat like coconut don't you think?

The flesh is soft and juicy, but stringy. According to Wikipedia, it "consists of an edible, white pulp and a core of indigestible, black seeds..." and  "...its flavor has been described as a combination of strawberry and pineapple with sour citrus flavor notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavor reminiscent of coconut or banana"; sounds a lot like a product label, doesn't it? But it did have an interesting taste, it wasn't quite the flavour explosion that wikipedia promised but it's subtle flavour was creamy with a hint of banana.

It was way to stringy for me to eat so I just sucked the juice out of it, which, when I looked it up it said it was best juiced than eaten raw anyway because its pockets of soft flesh bounded by fibrous membranes make it difficult to eat [1]. Once juiced it's also supposed to be great in candies, sorbets, and ice cream (I found an interesting recipe for ice-cream here). It also seems it's a bit of a Wonder Fruit too, having all kinds of medicinal properties from: antibacterial, antiparasitic, antispasmodic, astringent, hypotensive, insecticide, sedative, and cytotoxic[2]."

By mid-morning, another pattern started to emerge: with all his chores done for the day Chase would take his book to relax in the hammock. After a couple of hours, having not seen him for a while, I'd go out to see what he was doing and find him sound asleep, the book abandoned across his chest.

But I don't blame him, if there was a good spot to fall asleep, this was it; underneath the shade of the vines growing over the pergola the temperature was instantly 10⁰F cooler, whilst a hint of a light breeze would waft in through the branches, making it almost pleasant. And when you're not sleeping you can gaze lazily out between the gap in the luminiscent foilage and be beguiled by the dream-like view.

From this vantage point, it really could be paradise.

If you weren't layered up to your ears in Deet.

And eventually the heat of the day will push its way through till it's no longer comfortable even here.

Yes, it's not just warm here, it's hot; and it's hard to believe the hottest part of the year is yet to come. By mid-morning, although my day is only just beginning, the enveloping heat starts to invade the apartment and I will begin to feel so lethargic that I can't bring myself to do much at all. I know I should get up early, but hey, I was sort of on "holiday". Besides, there really wasn't any work for me to do here and it was hard to get motivated to do much else.

Meanwhile, I didn't see too much of Eric during the day unless we went into town. I'd usually hear him and Chase discussing something early in the morning while I was still snoozing in bed, but otherwise he'd be upstairs, almost non-existent. Chase said he was up there playing sodoku on his Kindle or trawling the internet. Not really the deeds of a man that was leaving this huge handful of a property to house-sitters for 6 months, but we shrugged and assumed he knew what he was doing.

So we went into town with Eric a couple of times so he could show us a few other things we needed to be able to find. Apart from the dump and the Vet he also took us to the Tuesday farmer's market. That's where we encountered that strange but familiar Aussie accent for the first time since leaving the home-country at the beginning of April.

First of all I smiled from that warm feeling that floods you on hearing that familiar sound in a world so unfamiliar. Then I laughed, because hearing it in this isolated context I could really grasp the absurd, nasal stretch of every word with that comical up swing at the end of each sentence. It really is a funny accent.

But lastly, I cringed, as did Chase; fellow Aussie's abroad, in general experience, weren't usually people you wanted to run into. Furthermore, they were encroaching on our own frontier experience. It seems you can never be the only Aussie in a place; after meeting that one in Luquillo I thought at least Vieques would be free of them! I mean, it should have be an oddity that even we would find ourselves here on this little-known island, let alone more of us. It's definitely not a place that's on the Aussie radar.

We tried to ignore them but we ran into them again at the supermarket, and it was now inevitable that we should meet. But as it turns out they were quite nice and friendly. They are a semi-retired couple from the south coast of New South Wales, and what's more, they are also house-sitting here for 6 months. While I was surprised at first I began to realise it would only be natural to meet other house-sitters in a place like this, with many foreigners migrating back and forth between the States, and soon I was feeling less reluctance to know them and more relief that these people were going to be here, in the same boat we were, hopefully feeling as anxious about the place as we were, for the next 6 months. As they didn't have a mobile phone or know their home number we gave them ours and would anxiously await to hear from them in the coming weeks.

But back to the farmer's market. It wasn't quite your traditional farmer's market with local farmers selling their wares directly to the people, but it was kind of neat. The one produce stall was a big U-shaped set-up of fruit and veg which wasn't locally grown, not even from the mainland of Puerto Rico but seemed to come, like everything else, from the United States. There were two other stalls beside that one, one was a lady selling plants, and the other was a friendly couple with a bread which they did make themselves. In fact, the star-fruit Chase had spent the morning picking was traded for a nice loaf of home made bread to go with dinner.

Speaking of dinner, Eric prepared or provided all our dinners while he was there, which was very nice of him, and not only that, he turns out to be a pretty good cook. One night he made something particularly Puerto Rican-esque for us, which at first startled me - Goat Stew.

But I tackled it like a champ and it was actually really tasty and not only that, the Caribbean version supplements green bananas for the starch in the meal. You cook it down like the rest of the vegetables in the pot, and you know what? It holds it's shape and tastes just like potato!

Sitting upstairs at Eric's dining table at the end of the day with a glass of wine in our hands was extremely relaxing. I might get used to this yet. Persistently, our eyes would draw to the open sky in front of us, and it was right now at this time of day in particular when I could understand best why Eric wanted to bring the view into his house: it provided a spectacular sunset show. While most of the time the clouds would encroach on what would otherwise be the blazing orange of the sun being swallowed up by the Sierra de Luquillo mountains, it didn't matter, the pattern and intense colour spattered across the sky was mesmerising.

Chase and I on our last night with Eric