November, 2006 - we spent Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. Commonwealth, but located in the Greater Antilles. I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first baby! Vieques is part of Puerto Rico, but it is a small island about 45 minutes away from the main-land by boat. We rented a car and drove to the city of Fajardo, home of the largest marina in all of the Caribbean. We then boarded a Catamaran and headed to Vieques!
Once we arrived on Vieques, we were hungry for dinner, so we stopped at Cafe Richards, a great little local restaurant. After dinner, we boarded this bus. Here I am with my in-laws ready for a great adventure! This bus had a broken windshield, holes in the floor, no door - I loved it! Then we went on an extremely bumpy, un-paved "road" that took us to Mosquito Bay. Once at Mosquito Bay, we walked aboard another boat, but this boat was basically a large floating platform. It was late at night and dark at this point -- perfect for swimming in a bioluminescent bay! Mosquito Bay is the second best (the first being in Taiwan) bioluminescent bay in the world with between 400,000 - 500,000 bioluminescent organisms/gallon of water. It was AMAZING! Unfortuantely, we didn't get any pictures of the bioluminescent creatures - it's hard to get anything to turn out in the pitch black! But let me just tell you about it: While on the boat, you start seeing glowing fish in the water. The fish weren't glowing, of course, but the boat caused fish to quickly swim away from the boat, which would in turn "disturb" the micro-organisms causing them to glow which made it look like the fish were glowing, so it was an awesome sight! And then, the best part...... the boat stopped and we were all able to jump in and swim! Every time you moved your body, that body part would light up and glow. I kept rolling around on my pregnant belly and seeing everything glow. It was unlike anything I have ever done before or since and I absolutely loved it!
Verdict: I absolutely agree (page 884 of 1000 Places....) that Vieques and Mosquito Bay is a must-do before you die!
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