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May 22, 2005
N18.1 W65.3 Isabel Segunda, Isla Vieques, Puerto Rico
The passage between the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico has wonky currents, which made for a difficult passage. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful sail into southwest winds and we arrived at Isla Vieques around 3pm, dropped anchor and called customs to let them know we had arrived. After Chis’ visit to the airport to clear customs the next morning, we left for Puerto Rico, only to encounter horrible storms on the horizon. We chickened out, and went around the corner of Vieques to drop anchor off Punta Arenas, where the storms rolled over us one by one. We plan conservatively, and this turned out to be a good choice.
Christopher Columbus, who discovered the island on his second visit, accompanied by Juan Ponce de Leon, named the island San Juan Bautista after St John the Baptist. Leon named the new settlement’s harbour Puerto Rico and at some point the island and the port swapped names. Puerto Rico was important to Spain because of discoveries of gold. At the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the US.
Posted by dave at May 22, 2005 11:26 AM