I traveled to Puerto Rico in early March for a friend’s wedding and immediately fell in love with this little island. I didn’t know much about the unincorporated US territory aside from reports of the destruction from Hurricane Maria, but after some extensive internet researching about its crystal blue waters, white sand beaches, and bioluminescent bays, I was eager to hop on the plane and see all that the Caribbean beauty had to offer.
The country has yet to fully recover from the catastrophic devastation caused by the Category 5 hurricane in September 2017. We were only there for a few days so we did not see the extent of its damage but did notice that a number of trails were currently closed or under construction in El Yunque National Park. But overall, Puerto Rico’s tourism game is still strong.
Our catamaran journey was rather choppy and several people got seasick but arriving to our ‘private island’ and having the beach to ourselves was totally worth the rough ride. We also made a stop on the way for some snorkeling in crystal clear waters.
I also got to check off one of my bucket list items – night kayaking in a bioluminescent bay. There are only 5 bays in the entire world with dinoflagellates (microorganisms that emit light when disturbed, causing the water surrounding them to glow) and Puerto Rico is home to three of them. The most famous and brightest bioluminescent bay is Mosquito Bay, located in Vieques. Since we did not have time to travel to Vieques, we visited Laguna Grande in Fajardo, which is located about 60 km from San Juan. We were fortunate to have clear skies and a nearly full moon that night, allowing for some incredibly bright bioluminescence, though kayaking through pitch dark mangroves leading to the bay at night was a little scary. I don’t have any photos of this since I didn’t want to risk dropping my iPhone in the water so you’ll have to trust Google images on this one.
Like most trips I take, I wished I’d had more time to enjoy Puerto Rico and venture to Vieques and other parts of the island. Lucky for me, my friend has a condo there so I’m definitely planning on going back soon!