Day 11: If at first you don't succeed...

Yesterday I was told I could catch a boat to culebrita at noon today. The cheapest, simplest way to get from vieques back to Culebra is to take two ferries... and the timetable dictated that I take the 6:30 vieques ferrry to be in Culebra on time. So I set my alarm for 5.45, and woke up this morning at 5.30 when the chickens wouldn't shut up.

Getting on the ferry was decent, though the ferry was surprisingly full and I sat on the floor rather than cram myself onto a bench. I was used to ferries with enough space to lie down if you want... When we got to Fajardo I realized just how bad the situation was. They had sold out of tickets to Culebra before we had even arrived. It turns out that Puerto Rican's flock to the island for the 3 day weekend that starts holy week, and that the first few people in line arrived before 6am to buy all the remaining tickets for their families/friends.

But a representative of the airline was there, arranging flights out of nearby Ceiba airport. I tacked on to a group of 8, just barely squeezing in, and eventually - after a half hour of taxi's sniping each others groups, counting and recounting our group, and waiting for people to park - we got a taxi to the airport. Chartering a flight is surprisingly simple. We had a PRican take point, since he spoke the language (and his wife spoke the most)... We each gave him (her) 40$, wrote our name and weight on a list, and he put it on a credit card. I could have given any name I wanted... There were no metal detectors, no x-rays... it was refreshingly easy.

The flight was fun too, and there were no choppy seas to worry about. I highly recommend it. Coming in to Culebra I could barely see my old hotel and saw the trails to and the peak next to the cow-pad. The landing was awesome, it was the first time I ever thought I might be in a plane-crash. Because of the shape of the island there's a hill right before the landing strip, so our pilot had to fly downwards towards the short runway. Usually, a landing plane is pointing up but moving down, sort of a swooping motion. At this airport, you point down and move down, sort of a crashing motion. After a touchdown and a few wiggles we all clapped.

I called up Willy, the man with a boat, and arrainged to meet on the town peir. I finished reading the Millennium Trilogy and watched dingy's come in from the yachts in the harbor. At 5 minutes to noon, Willy came by, asking about the other two people. At noon, Troy showed up, followed shortly by his wife, Joy, who had been held up by/at the sandwich shop picking up lunch. Willy told us we were the first tourists on this newer, smaller boat as we set off, with Joy and Troy taking turns at the wheel as we idled through the no-wake inner harbor. Then we got to the yes-wake zone and Willy pinned the throttle. Right before we left the harbor the engine went from making a normally-loud deep burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr noise to making a very loud BRAPBRAPBRAPBRAP noise. I looked at it, looked at Willy, and when Willy was starting at it I knew something was wrong.

We puttered out of the channel, killed the engine, and lifted the engine cover. One of the spark plugs was just hanging out. The one above it was at a jaunty angle... a bad thing for a spark plug. On my side of the v6, they were all where they should be, but they all moved when I poked them. Willy explained: 1) always doublecheck your mechanic, and 2) this is why he doesn't fly planes. We puttered over to another boat, but the only tool they had was pliers, so Willy called one of his taxi driver's who came out with the tool-bag that should have been in the boat from the beginning. A minute later and we roared out into the open seas.

There were 3 boats at the beach when we got there, and Willy gently crashed into the sandy part, we all jumped overboard into the 18" water, and he went back home, leaving us to do what we would on the island. Joy and Troy stayed at the beach to snorkel, I immediately started heading to the trails and uphill.

If at first you don't succeed, find another lighthouse. The hotel had mentioned it, saying "The old light house is extremely dangerous and should not be entered." Obviously, I had to. I was surprised that the fence was missing in sections, and a number of people all around. I walked through the surrounding buildings and offered a memorycard to a family that had just filled theirs. ("Are you shooting on SD" "Yeah, I think it's a GD") $20 for 4 gigs is not a good deal, but $20 for 4 gigs on an abandoned island right when your only card fills up is a great deal. For the historically inclined, it was built in 1886 and shuttered in 1959, though there is still a solar-powered beacon in it.

Then I crossed the wooden planks to the rusty staircase and went up. It was a little easier / less dangerous than I'd hoped, but the view from the top made up for it. You could see all the beaches on the island, Culebra, Vieques, even St. Thomas. And the breeze tore across the top, this has to be my favorite place in Puerto Rico. I then set up some webbing around the central core of the lighthouse, tied in, and rappeled it a few times. Because of the lip at the top the best way over the edge is to jump... which is unnerving the first time and fun the rest. Various tourists asked me to pause at certain points so they could get a picture...

I had a blast. It was entirely worth carrying around all the extra gear for the last two weeks just to rap it once. To do it a few times and take pictures? Fantastic. To conclude, I did an aussie rap on a figure 8, something I'd previously only done with a rescue rack (a different type of belay device). My first attempt the figure 8 inverted on me, meaning it turned into a hitch and wouldn't slide. I flopped back up over the edge, untied the knot, flipped it, and tried again. This time it worked. Except for the end, it wasn't as much fun as the previous rappels, but at the end I had to rappel off the end of the rope (on purpose, the rope was 3' too short) while jumping from face-down to feet-down.

I hiked back down to the beach, and found a shaded spot underneath a few arching branches were I spent my time - broken up by occasional wanders - reading an autobiography, finishing my teddy-graham and peanut trailmix, and watching turtles bob up for air every few minutes.

At 5.30 Willy came to pick us up, and to make up for the engine trouble he decided it was happy hour, so we all had a beer on the way home. He even took us for a tour of the mangrove swamp where they hide their boats during storms. It was interesting seeing the brown splotches of roots missing their leafy bushes in perfectly boat-shaped splotches wherever a boat had broken away from its anchor and headed for the shore.

I had dinner overlooking the harbor, and then set off looking for a hotel with vacancy or a beach with cover to spend the night. An elderly couple picked me up in their pickup truck a few miles down the road and drove me to the furthest of two hotels. It didn't have vacancy, but the one just down (yay downhill) the road did. Signing the bill, I was surprised how easily I went from planning to sleep on the beach to sleeping in a $250/night room. Not that I paid that much, thank goodness. It was a sweet room. Huge bed, a dozen pillows, and one of those showers that has a head the size of a dinnerplate. I'm going to come home spoiled.