I think we're gonna get boarded

[Kevin's Post]We left Culebrita Tuesday morning to head to the southeast coast of Vieques. We had light winds on the beam the whole way and small seas, so it was a very pleasant sail. Margaret even took the helm for a while. As we approached the eastern end of Vieques I see a Coast Guard cutter about 2 miles to our east steaming right at us. "Uh, I think we're gonna get boarded", I say to Amanda. The Coast Guard routinely boards and inspects vessels in this area and pretty much everyone we know has been boarded at least once, except us. So we watch them get closer and closer and then the inevitable, they hail us on the VHF. They asked us the typical questions, registration number, persons on board, nationalities, last and next ports of call, purpose of journey, etc. Then just a "Thanks, and have a nice day". Sigh of relief. It wouldn't have been a big deal to be boarded, but nerve-wracking anyway. We had just bought new un-expired flares 3 days earlier for just such an event, and I doubt they would have found any other issues, but given the choice I'd rather not find out.

Our intended destination was Bahia Fanduca, a small cove on the southeast coast which looked cool on google earth. As we approached we saw a large white buoy at the entrance with small writing on it we could read from more than 100 feet away. Amanda suggested we go a little closer to see what it said. It said, "No anchoring zone, unexploded ordinance". Hmmm, you'd think something like that would warrant a larger font. It wasn't really a surprise though, the whole eastern half of the island was bombed by the navy for 50 years and they are still in the process of cleaning it up. So we pushed onward another few miles to Isla Chiva which we knew was safe. They had 3 free park moorings there so we tied up to one and spent the afternoon snorkeling. This spot had a nice reef and a large seagrass bed. We saw rays, turtles, barracuda in addition to the typical reef fish. Once again, we had the whole place to ourselves.