June 20. Ensenada Honda, Isla Vieques

Sun Bay was a fun stop as we hiked along the beautiful beach, which had some tidal pools deep enough to sit in and cool off. Now and then a wave crashing ashore would make it high enough and trickle over the rocks of the reef into the pool we were sitting in, like a little ambiance waterfall in a pool. One of the next bays over is known for its bioluminescence and since the ocean was too rough to take the dinghy around I went ashore to find the one mile path to get to it. I was about 5 minutes away from the bay as a heard of wild horses were grazing along side the path. Most of them got out of my way, a lot of them were hidden in the bushes but one jumped out in front of a smaller one and walked straight towards me with head high above. Well, it didn't take me long to realized that I was trespassing and turned around and walked as fast as I could the direction I came from, now and then looking over my shoulder to see that the horse would start walking towards me again every time I looked back. So later when it was dark we didn't think it was a wise idea to hike the trail in the dark amongst wild horses and never got to see the bioluminescent bay. Although, Stacey and I took the dinghy around to the town of Esperanza which had a small convenience store, two restaurants and a few tourist shops, we had fun exploring and the excitement was coming back around the corner into our anchorage as 6 foot waves came towards us, making it rough for us. The only way to get back was driving the dinghy very slowly, of course we got soaked but arrived without any problems. While here another tropical wave came by bringing some squalls. On the 19. we heard another system was already underway and since this anchorage was a bit rolly we decided to lift anchor and sail to Ensenada Honda which is surrounded by mangroves and very protected. It was only 8 miles to go but getting there was tough as the wind started building and the waves doubled up. We had 8 footers crashing right over the bow and the two hour trip seemed like a whole days nightmare. The water turned into a bigger mess that we had in the Mona Passage. We're glad we did the change of anchorage, because as I'm writing this we're being hit by squall after squall, this one has winds up to 30 knots. This tropical wave should be gone by Thursday and maybe luck has it that we can sail from here straight to St. Thomas. Well, luck has to be on our side at one time or the other, we would like to believe.