Where the heck is Culebra?
June 27th, 2007
The email that I sent yesterday to let everyone know we are moving to Culebra to run the Palmetto Guesthouse produced quite a few responses that all asked the same question - Where the Heck is Culebra? It was such a common theme that I thought I would give the answer in a quick post, which will supersede part 2 of “Why we didn’t buy in the BVI?”
Culebra is located about 17 miles (27 km) east of Puerto Rico and 12 miles (19km) west of the cruise ship and jewelry store capital of the world known as St Thomas, USVI. The island has a total land area of 10 square miles and for those of you who want to find it on Google Earth its basic geographic coordinates are Latitude: 18.33º N Longitude: 65.33º W. According to the 2000 US Census Culebra had a full time resident population of 1868 persons but unconfirmed statistics now place that number closer to 2500 – 3000.
source: http://www.scubalinx.com
Moreover, for those of you that inquired, “is Culebra part of the US?” yes it is. Specifically, Puerto Rico (thus Culebra) is a self-governing commonwealth of the United States, which means US citizens can move there freely and have full immigration status as residents (very important to us!). Politically, people from Puerto Rico can’t vote, so that means George W. Bush is their president but we can’t blame them for putting him into power. Speaking of Bush, it is also important to note that the US military previously used Culebra and its sister Island of Vieques for bombing practice.
source: NOAA Environmental Sensitivity Map
To get some additional information I “Googled” “where is Culebra” and below you will find the top five results if you are interested in supplemental reading and photo resources:
www.culebradivers.com/
www.swulinski.com/travels/Culebra.html
http://nemcokovci.sk/?pic=2025&language=en&miesto=on
www.iit.edu/~PR/prcul.html
http://away.com/tripideas/culebra-snorkeling-309153.html
Questions or comments email: mark_w_hayward [at] yahoo [dot] com
*Note: next post will be on Friday afternoon.
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