Fajardo, Puerto Rico’s Boating and Water Sports Paradise

Every town in Puer­to Rico has its own claim to fame. Old San Juan is about forts and cob­ble­stones, muse­ums, food and shop­ping. Oth­er towns are about beach­es, moun­tains, flow­ers or water­falls. And in the case of Fajar­do, it’s all about boat­ing and water sports.

Fajar­do is the north-east­ern­most town on the large island of Puer­to Rico. As you’ll recall from pre­vi­ous posts, Puer­to Rico is actu­al­ly a group of islands, that includes Mona, Moni­to and Desecheo to the west, Caja de Muer­to south, Vieques, Culebri­ta and Culebri­ta to the east, and of course the main island. Also to the east are a series of small­er islands like Ica­cos, Palomi­no and sev­er­al small­er keys that make Fajar­do a swim­ming, snor­kel­ing, scu­ba div­ing and fish­ing paradise.

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Fajar­do was found­ed in 1760, 1773 or 74 (depend­ing on who you ask). It was also one of the places cho­sen by the Amer­i­can troops to invade Puer­to Rico back in 1898. For many years the town’s econ­o­my depend­ed on Roo­sevelt Roads, a U.S. naval air base, built in 1943 in the neigh­bor­ing town of Cei­ba, that at one time was one of the largest in the world.

Today Fajar­do has none of that income, and you can see the effects every­where you look.

Our first stop was at the San­ti­a­go Após­tol Cathe­dral in the cen­ter of town. Many of you have asked me why I always start at the Catholic church. Well, it’s not because I’m a Catholic, because I’m not. But, believe it or not, there are tourists that actu­al­ly go around the world vis­it­ing old church­es. And when it comes to that, Puer­to Rico has some of the nicest in the new world.

San­ti­a­go APos­tol Cathedral 
(click on image to see it larger)

Cathe­dral San­ti­a­go Após­tol (or St. James Apos­tle Cathe­dral, in the King’s Eng­lish) was estab­lished in 1776, but it was destroyed by an earth­quake in 1867. The build­ing that you see today was start­ed two years lat­er, in 1869, using the floor tiles and walls from the orig­i­nal struc­ture. It acquired Cathe­dral sta­tus 139 years lat­er when Pope Bene­dict XVI estab­lished the Dio­cese of Fajar­do-Humacao in the year 2008.

I’m not even going to try to describe the archi­tec­ture of San­ti­a­go Após­tol, because —as you know— I’m not an archi­tect. All I can say is that every­thing I read about this church before my vis­it was true. It’s absolute­ly beau­ti­ful, it’s huge and it points west instead of east.

Nor­mal­ly Catholic church­es point east, mean­ing that altar points east and the front door points west. But not San­ti­a­go Após­tol. And this always baf­fles me, because most of these old church­es were built when there was noth­ing else around them, so the builders could have done what­ev­er they pleased.

In any case, it’s a won­der­ful church that sits right next to the Anto­nio R. Barceló Square. In fact, many would argue that the church actu­al­ly sits inside the square, on the north­west corner.

The square itself is actu­al­ly quite nice too, with ample walk­ing areas, dozens of bench­es for peo­ple watch­ing, ade­quate tree cov­er, a cen­tral gaze­bo with a beau­ti­ful water foun­tain next to it and a stat­ue of Anto­nio R. Barceló flanked by a cou­ple of canons. Why the canons, you might ask? They prob­a­bly have to do with the old Roo­sevelt Roads base in some way.

Fajar­do City Hall
(click on image to see it larger)

Across the street, on the south­east cor­ner of the square, you have the City Hall build­ing (or Alcaldía) paint­ed in baby blue with white trim. Right next to it there’s an entire gov­ern­ment com­plex that occu­pies most of the south­ern side of the square.

As we left the cen­ter of town we drove towards the “old cus­toms house” build­ing next to where the old fer­ry ter­mi­nal for the islands of Vieques and Cule­bras used to be. That’s exact­ly what it says when you look it up on Google: “old cus­toms house”, so we thought it would be some sort of museum.

Old Cus­toms House Building
(click on image to see it larger)

Well, it’s not. When we got there I looked around the build­ing and, just as I was about to open the door, it opened right before me and there was a guard on the oth­er side. He explained that it’s actu­al­ly a work­ing build­ing with actu­al employ­ees inside.

As it turns out, locals sail­ing back from neigh­bor­ing islands have to stop by the U.S. Cus­toms House and declare what­ev­er they buy.

In any case, there’s noth­ing else in the area except for the aban­doned fer­ry ter­mi­nal a few meters northwest.

And while we are on the sub­ject of boat­ing, let me men­tion that Fajar­do is the boat­ing Mec­ca of north­east­ern Puer­to Rico. It has five mari­nas, includ­ing Puer­to del Rey which is the largest in the Caribbean, Puer­to Chico, Vil­la Mari­na, Isle­ta Mari­na and Sea Lovers.

How­ev­er, it’s not like you can walk right into one of those mari­nas and shoot footage or pho­tos at will. Those are pri­vate facil­i­ties that require a mem­ber­ship to get in.

That said, there are just 5 ways to enjoy Fajar­do to the fullest, and all of them have to do most­ly with boats. You’ll have to own a boat, know some­one that owns a boat, rent a boat, pay for a boat ride or rent a boat with a cap­tain for the day. If you’re a tourist, the last option will prob­a­bly be the best.

There are count­less enter­tain­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties includ­ing: scu­ba div­ing, snor­kel­ing, fish­ing, bathing in the pris­tine waters at the near­by islands, and even sail­ing to the neigh­bor­ing islands of Vieques, Cule­bra, Culebri­ta and the U.S. Vir­gin Islands.

By now you’ll prob­a­bly be ask­ing your­self: “how much will all this cost”? Well, like the say­ing goes: “if you have to ask”…

Sev­en Seas Beach
(click on image to see it larger)

After leav­ing the U.S. Cus­toms House we head­ed for Sev­en Seas, a beau­ti­ful beach that’s prob­a­bly the best in the area includ­ing the world famous Luquil­lo Beach.

As you’ll recall from my pre­vi­ous posts, I’ve always said that Luquil­lo Beach is the best beach on the larg­er island of Puer­to Rico. That’s my hum­ble opin­ion and I stand by my words. But that’s because God made it that way, not because of any­thing done by the local government.

Sev­en Seas Beach
(click on image to see it larger)

Well, the fact is that Fajardo’s gov­ern­ment has done a great deal to make Sev­en Seas the best that it can be. And they’ve done a great job. The place is sim­ply stun­ning. It’s clean, and that alone is a great start. But there’s a lot more. It has ample park­ing, restrooms, show­ers, gaze­bos, garbage bins, ample sig­nage, life­guards, buoys and the list goes on and on.

You can even rent a kayak and pad­dle to your heart’s con­tent. Oh, and did I men­tion that the surf is about an inch high? That’s right, a huge reef along the entrance to Bahía Cabezas keeps the Atlantic’s fury miles away from the coast.

Playa Ense­na­da Yegua
(click on image to see it larger)

Just steps away from Sev­ens Seas there’s a sec­ond beach called “Playa Ense­na­da Yegua”. In fact, if you could look at the area from up in the sky you’d see that it’s actu­al­ly one long beach. They both share the same Bahía Las Cabezas. The dif­fer­ence is that “Playa Ense­na­da Yegua” is a wild beach, mean­ing that all you have is the water, the sand, the sun and the sky. That’s it. No facil­i­ties and no lifeguards.

Nev­er­the­less, the beach is just as gor­geous and invit­ing. In fact, I used to snorkel there when I was a young man.

Once again, a few steps fur­ther east you’ll find the entrance to Las Cabezas De San Juan, an envi­ron­men­tal­ly pro­tect­ed area run by the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust.

Entrance to Las Cabezas de San Juan
(click on image to see it larger)

My wife and I vis­it­ed Las Cabezas De San Juan years ago and it was won­der­ful. It felt like vis­it­ing a Dis­ney park, with a gath­er­ing area, trams, trained guides and well-kept facil­i­ties. Then Hur­ri­cane María came along and sent it all to hell in a hand bas­ket.

Well, I stopped by the guard house at Las Cabezas De San Juan and was told that the place is slow­ly com­ing back to life and that they expect it to be ful­ly oper­a­tional soon. Vis­its are by appoint­ment only and some park facil­i­ties are not avail­able. For more infor­ma­tion vis­it the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust web­site (https://savingplaces.org/distinctive-destinations/cabezas-de-san-juan-nature-reserve).

There was one place left that I hadn’t vis­it­ed in years. It’s called Las Croabas. It used to be a fish­ing vil­lage, with dozens of small eater­ies, where you could stop for a beer and sea food for very lit­tle money.

Well, Las Croabas has evolved. Now there’s a con­crete walk along the shore, a cou­ple of boat ramps, a large park along the water­front, gaze­bos, restrooms and park­ing areas. There are still a cou­ple of restau­rants left but they are most­ly larg­er concerns.

Las Croabas Promenade

Behind the park, and atop the moun­tain, you can see the famous Con­quis­ta­dor Hotel. Across the water you can see Palomi­no island in the distance.

One thing I must men­tion are Puer­to Rico’s bio­lu­mi­nes­cent bays. These are salt water lagoons that have a unique char­ac­ter­is­tic. They shine in the dark. Why? Because of a microor­gan­ism called “phy­to­plank­ton” that lives in the water.

There are only five bio­lu­mi­nes­cent bays (or lagoons) in the world and Puer­to Rico is lucky to have three of them. There’s one in La Par­guera area, in the south­ern town of Lajas, one on the island of Vieques, called Mos­qui­to Bay, and one in Fajar­do. But frankly the ones in Vieques and Fajar­do are the best. The one in Lajas has been adverse­ly affect­ed by pol­lu­tion to the point where it hard­ly shines anymore.

Make sure to ask about night­time tours when you vis­it the Fajar­do area.

And the oth­er two bays? Who cares!!! Just kid­ding… in the US. Vir­gin Islands and in the Bahamas.

After vis­it­ing Las Croabas it was time to go back to San Juan. For­tu­nate­ly, that’s easy. Just find your way back to state road #3, fol­low it ‘till you get to Plaza Car­oli­na Mall and take state road 26 (Ramón Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro Express­way) towards your final destination.

And talk­ing about San Juan, if you’re plan­ning to vis­it the Old City, save your­self the has­sle of tra­di­tion­al city tours. They’re expen­sive and you’ll be herd­ed along with peo­ple that won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly share your interests.

Instead, order The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour. It’s packed with use­ful infor­ma­tion about all the main attrac­tions, as well as every GPS coor­di­nate and two hours of exclu­sive online video. That way you’ll be able to —vis­it before you vis­it— and hit the ground run­ning when you arrive in the Old City.

See you next time!

©2024,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Podcaster,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590