Some Thoughts on the Culebra Experience

I was in Fajardo the other day, waiting for the ferry to go home. This time of year it is slow slow slow around here and I only counted two tourists among all the rest of us (not so very many at that), coming back from doctor, dentist or other appointments, shopping, or returning from being away for awhile. The ferry was on time and it was the passenger ferry, making better time than usual. 

I was thinking about how everyone who has never been to Culebra before has their own first experience, knowing nothing else for comparison. How some wait for hours in lines stretching beyond the end of the street and are then turned away from boarding. Or how maybe there is a steel drum band playing. Or how the security people are kind and helpful or short-tempered and rude. Or how, on a day like that day, all is peaceful, easy and calm, including the weather. 

Whatever is going on at the ferry terminal starts a person's experience of Culebra. And then they arrive and hopefully, everyone has the same experience, in one fashion or another. Helpful people, good service, beautiful times at the beaches. That's the ideal, anyway. And that's where each of us come in, being that specialness, being that person that makes visitors welcome to our small place in the world. 

What is the visitors job? To enjoy being here and leave Culebra better than when they arrived,  understanding that we are a very small island, with very small shops and restaurants, where sometimes we run out of things like milk and gasoline and even time to wait on people as fast as they might wish. To pick up and dispose of their trash in the proper places, not the roadway or the beach sands. 

As season approaches, we all have our place to shine. Even when it rains.

Have a search your soul silly Saturday. Do something savewhat'sleft-ish.