I’ve
written a lot about Ensenada Honda, the bonefish-rich bay on the
Caribbean side of Vieques, and the difficulties I’ve had
accessing it on windy days. A stiff southeast breeze can easily
turn the eight mile run from the town of Esperanza’s launch ramp
into a punishing and dangerous ordeal in my seventeen foot flats
boat. For the past year I’ve been eyeing an alternative way to
get to this bay without enduring the punishment of our routinely
high southern seas.
At the end of Blue Beach, just west of Ensenada Honda, there is
an open area where the sand slopes into the calm, shallow water.
The Fish and Game people stuck up a sign indicating that this is
a natural boat ramp and, even though I’ve never seen anyone
launch a boat there, I’ve been itching to try it. Instead of a
half hour soaking ride from Esperanza, launching at the
protected end of Blue Beach would give me an easy three minute
shot to the acres of flats in Ensenada Honda, and its year round
bonefish.
The big obstacle here is the road to Blue Beach itself. You
drive down a five-mile dirt trail through the old Navy lands,
with a few stretches that feel like they were cratered by
wayward cluster-bombs. In my indestructible old Jeep, this road
is a twenty minute bounce. Hooking up 1700 pounds of boat and
single-axle trailer behind me would make it into an hour long
crawl, so I’ve never tried it. Not until two weeks ago.
Earlier this year I got a call from a freelance writer who I
fished with last winter while he was doing a story for National
Geographic. We caught a nice tarpon on fly that day but the
story was on the island itself and not the fishing. This year
Greg was writing a series of articles for the New York Times,
one of which would focus specifically on the fly fishing off
Vieques, with a staff photographer coming along for the ride.
On top of the obvious free publicity, I enjoyed fishing with
Greg and really wanted to show him a couple of good days this
time. With a professional photographer assigned, Ensenada Honda,
one of the most beautiful spots in the Caribbean, would be the
perfect location. I said all the weather prayers possible but
when Greg showed up two weeks ago, it was blowing like stink. My
only way to get the guys and my boat into the bay safely would
be the five mile dirt road and untested “ramp” at the end of
Blue Beach.
I met Greg and Alex, the photographer, at Garcia Gates at
sunrise. With visions of flat tires and a busted leaf springs in
my head, I started the agonizingly slow crawl toward the beach.
It took forty-five minutes, fifteen less than expected, to get
to the ramp, but we arrived in one piece. My boat slid into the
water as easily as if it were concrete and five minutes later we
were drifting across the perfect Ensenada flats, sheltered from
the winds by the big hills surrounding the bay. When I looked
south all I could see was a Caribbean stirred up by gusts that
would have made this day impossible if we launched from
Esperanza.
Admittedly, the fishing was a little slow that morning, but we
had plenty of shots and a few hookups. The highlight of the day
came when Greg made a perfect cast to a small permit, the Holy
Grail of shallow water game fish, and had it pounce on his fly.
After a heroic effort to get the loose line on the reel, and
with Alex snapping away, Greg finally got the fish under
control. Seconds later the hook simply came loose. This seemed
to be a recurring problem for us. Before his time with me in
Vieques was done, Greg managed to hook and loose a fly rod Grand
Slam, two tarpon, a bonefish, and a permit. All hooked and all
lost to nothing more than bad luck. Every fisherman needs a good
“One That Got Away” story, so I guess we had ours and then some.
At the end of the day I was happy. Greg had a few great fish to
write about for the New York Times, Alex shot several megabytes
of photos, and I assured myself that I could get to Ensenada
Honda from Blue Beach with some effort but no major trauma. Life
was good. Then I tried to pull the boat out of the water.
With 1700 pounds pushing down on the back of my 4WD Wrangler,
the wheels dug right into the sand and kept spinning. We pushed,
shoved rocks under the tires, and tried it from every angle, but
the damn boat wasn’t coming up that lousy beach. In the end, I
had to call my VERY BUSY wife (who warned me not to try this in
the first place) to come and rescue us in her Toyota 4-Runner.
After yanking me out with her big SUV in front of everyone, I
admitted she was right and promised her I’d never try this
again.
Unless ESPN calls…
Capt. Gregg McKee,
WildFly Charters
