LovetoFloat
Registered
Heading to Culebra in October for a very laid back vacation. Any updates/suggestions/advice for snorkeling or anything else while we are there?
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
Heading to Culebra in October for a very laid back vacation. Any updates/suggestions/advice for snorkeling or anything else while we are there?
I was in Culebra for a snorkeling vacation for 10 days in March 2008. To get you excited about your trip, here are some uw photos I took there (all were taken when snorkeling): Puerto Rico 2008 snorkeling - a set on Flickr
If you click on a photo, you will see that I have a caption telling where specifically (what beach) I took the photo. (A few pictures were taken on Vieques). One of the photos even made it into the Moon Guide to Puerto Rico.
I liked Culebra a lot. Very laid back, uncrowded with no mega development, and you feel privileged to have "discovered" this place. All the snorkeling we did was off the beach; we rented a vehicle to access the beaches. While the snorkeling was not "drop dead" spectacular, what I liked about was it was so easy. The winds blew in a steady tradewind direction, so the leeward (west) side of the island was extremely calm. This is where we snorkeled everyday. Basically, you parked your vehicle, walked a few steps onto the beach, put on your gear, and got in the water. Since I like to take uw photos while I snorkel, I appreciated the lack of surge and no currents. I was able to get some of my best uw photos on Culebra. Most people will tell you that Playa Carlos Rosario has the best snorkeling on the island, and it did have by far the best growth of hard and soft corals that I saw. However, I was somewhat disappointed by the meager number of fish. Like most Caribbean islands, Culebra seemed overfished and mostly I saw little fish. Carlos Rosario is one spot that you have hike about 20 minutes to get to, over a hill from where you park at Flamenco Beach. People told us there was no decent snorkeling at Flamenco Beach, the island's main beach, but we found one spot that was actually pretty good. This was on the left side of the beach (as you look at the water) towards the old tank. You will find a big shallow reef of dead coral there (extending almost to the shore). If you snorkel far enough along the edge of this dead coral offshore to its outer edge, you will come to a wall with live coral that drops abruptly to a sandy bottom about 20 ft. deep. This was a cool spot, with many royal grammas along the wall, and I also remember seeing a tiger grouper there. That was the only decent-sized grouper I found on Culebra.
I would estimate the snorkeling visibility on Culebra to be about 30-40 ft. with perhaps a maximum of 50 ft. at Carlos Rosario. Don't expect to find breathtakingly 100 ft. vis such as that in Bonaire or Cozumel. Except for Flamenco, most of the beaches are rather rocky so booties would be a good option.
Other than snorkeling, diving, or sitting around on Flamenco Beach, there isn't much to do on Culebra. The island is small and arid, and you will be able to explore all its roads in a few hours. There was a very modest museum, which hopefully they have improved since we were there. You can hire water taxis to take you out to one of smaller islands around Culebra, which I regret we never got around to doing. Considering the limited number of accommodations, I was surprised how many restaurants there were in 2008. There were 5 or 6 that were fairly good; I am not a gourmet, but I recall enjoying every meal on Culebra. One thing that isn't good is Puerto Rican beer (Medalla).
I'm not sure what weather you will encounter in Oct. versus what we had in March. Hopefully you will have similar tradewind conditions to what we had. I'm sure you are aware that Oct. is still hurricane season, although it's after the Sept. peak. I'd guess Sept. and Oct. are the least crowded months, so maybe some of the restaurants may not be open or may have erratic hours.
Have a great time, and if you can find the motivation, try to post a trip report here. I have been thinking about going back to Culebra sometime!