Puerto Nuevo Beach in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico

playa-de-puer­to-nue­vo

Puerto Nuevo Beach, Vega Baja, Puerto Rico

Puer­to Nue­vo Beach, Vega Baja, Puer­to Rico

One of the nicest beach­es in the north cen­tral area of Puer­to Rico is “Playa Puer­to Nue­vo”, in the lit­tle town of Vega Baja.

Vega Baja used to be an indus­tri­al pow­er­house a cou­ple of decades back, but today —due in great part to the stu­pid­i­ty of the Island’s cen­tral gov­ern­ment— unem­ploy­ment is sky-high and there’s evi­dence of the eco­nom­ic down­turn everywhere.

One of the areas where you’ll see such decay is on your way to Puer­to Nue­vo Beach.  There are closed indus­tri­al con­cerns all along the way.

Now let’s talk about the beach!  Puer­to Nue­vo Beach is beau­ti­ful.  Not because of any gov­ern­men­tal inter­ven­tion but because God just made it that way.

When you reach the beach there’s an ample park­ing area but no park­ing atten­dant.  Only a local free­loader will approach you, ask for a dol­lar to “watch your car”, and then do nothing.

Enter­ing the beach area it becomes evi­dent that there are no show­ers, no lock­ers, no life­guards and no recy­cling facil­i­ties.  The place is more or less the way nature made it, only with a lit­tle more wear and tear.

How­ev­er, it’s breathtaking!!!

On the west side there’s a huge beach area with hard­ly any surf.  What I also noticed (and this is just a per­son­al pref­er­ence of mine) is that there are hard­ly any palm trees, so shade is at a premium.

Puerto Nuevo Beach, Behind the Breakwater

Puer­to Nue­vo Beach, Behind the Break­wa­ter. Click on image to see it larger.

Walk­ing north from the entrance there’s a huge break­wa­ter where the fury of the sea can be a show in itself.  The water hits against the rocks, rush­es down the inner side and forms a beau­ti­ful crys­tal-clear pond about 4‑feet deep that vis­i­tors absolute­ly adore.

A lit­tle fur­ther to the east there’s anoth­er beach.  But this one is not for bathers.  It’s rocky and dan­ger­ous.  I asked one of the locals what they call that area and he said they called it “Sibu­co”.

Now, before I went to Puer­to Nue­vo Beach —or “Playa Puer­to Nue­vo”, like the locals call it— I was told that this was a place where many peo­ple have drowned.  So I asked around to learn why.  It turns out that many peo­ple walk over the break­wa­ter, where the open sea rush­es onto the rocks.  And, as you might imag­ine, if you fall in the water on the out­er side of the break­wa­ter you’re in for trouble.

So here’s my advise, if you decide to vis­it Puer­to Nue­vo Beach stay away from the break­wa­ter!  The part of the beach that’s right behind the break­wa­ter is calm, crys­tal clear and beau­ti­ful; and the lit­tle pond that forms behind the break­wa­ter is pure heav­en!  The sand is tan col­ored and a lit­tle on the coarse side.

As for Puer­to Nue­vo Beach in gen­er­al, it’s one of those places that could be a lot bet­ter if the local gov­ern­ment just put a lit­tle mon­ey and effort into it.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

Orlan­do Mergal

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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