January 2017 – There is a small island off the south coast of Puerto Rico with the unauspicious name “Caja de Muertos”. Or Coffin Island, if you prefer. From the photo above, you may be able to envision how someone decided on that name. It does look a bit like a shrouded corpse, I guess. If you squint. And use your imagination.
And, in fact, it seemed the whole island was covered with things that were determined to kill (or at least injure) anyone who dared to come ashore. Soaring cacti with 2” long spines. Machineel trees. Thorny brambles. Heat. And steep,steep trails to scramble up. But, for us,it was more than worth the risks!
We found ourselves almost alone on beaches covered in smooth green stones and small conch shells. Hiked all the way to the lighthouse at the top. Had the anchorage to ourselves in the evenings, and had a nice snorkel on the east side of the island.
Here is a view of our boat, Consort, from one of our beach excursions:
And some shots of the lighthouse, which was at the end of a hike up through all those things trying to kill us:
There were thousands of white butterflies around all day. Can you see them?
And lizards, as always. This little guy had great camouflage:
Someone even built us a snowman to find:
We spent just a couple of days at Caja de Muerto, and that wasn’t enough! We hope to return again.
