Since MaryAnn said what so many living on Culebra feel, with her well known combination of harsh truth and humor, I'm going to give her the post lectern today. Along with the comments. Facebook is a public forum, accessible by and to anyone, so I'm not outing anyone here (but if you hear some cheers when you read the comments of a few...that's me).
Before reading this, though, here is a snippet from an article by a travel writer for the Miami Herald. The title of the article is Five Islands Where Cruise Ships Won't Cramp Your Style. It was written in November of 2014. Leaders of Culebra, you want tourist dollars? Tourists travelers don't WANT cruise ships! They can be had anywhere. They want Culebra to be Culebra. Really! Just so you know. Stop this before it's too late. We're a few steps over the line, but it's not too late to get back to where we should be.
CULEBRA AND VIEQUES
Satellites lolling off the east coast of Puerto Rico, Culebra and Vieques have yet to taste mass tourism. That’s largely because the U.S. Navy owned much of the two islands during the region’s big tourism buildup, using them for troop training and bombing practice. The Navy left Culebra in 1975, and in 2003 Camp Garcia on Vieques became conservation land administered by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Trust.
Today, the islands are gradually awakening to a tourism-focused future. But cruise ships have ignored them, leaving undeveloped beaches for you and me to explore.
Sleepy Culebra, the smaller of the two, can be explored in a leisurely couple of days. Fine snorkeling reefs shelter the island’s beaches, several of which are reached on unmarked trails. Flamenco, a mile-long semi-circle of pillow-soft sand, regularly appears on lists of the Caribbean’s greatest beaches — just one small hotel and a campground overlook Flamenco. An uninhabited offshore island, Culebrita, has other coves — a great day trip.
And now, on with the show.
Coralations Culebra with Digna Feliciano and 13 others.
This morning we could hear the sound of THE SEA MONSTAR anchored in the bay- all the way in barrio Las Delicious. All this, for more or less one hundred well fed passengers, on an all inclusive voyage?
Without public hearings or a legitimate planning process governing these major changes to our island, we can only speculate as to what agencies were thinking when they permitted this?
This is what we speculate:
“Let’s let them anchor in the bay! The bay is already so damaged from the years of mud flowing in it anyway. By the way, - who’s supposed to control that?, we are? oh whatever…the bay flushes itself with the tides and corals are just dying everywhere so who cares? What’s the deal with those negative conservationists? They are so NEGATIVE! Who cares about saving the Bay? We should be PAVING the Bay - town needs more parking! HUMMER JEEP RENTALS…This is progress! Listen to those conservationists and their baby manatees born at canal Bruli….blah blah blah, sea turtles in the bay….,blah blah blah, and then they say the nature tourists that want to see them, stay in the guest houses, put money into local restaurants, water taxis and even invest in local social programs. They say these tourists are already educated about the nature they come to see- so they don’t destroy it. They say those tourists visit Culebra for the local culture and don't want to see it spoiled by huge commercial vessels. Blah Blah Blah.... It’s all more nature ….blah blah blah….We can get that by just pretending…hell look at the signs all over town from BADCAFFEINEDRINK saying “Preserve Flamenco Beach” What else do we really need to do? Those conservation a-holes just want to stop “progress” on Culebra! We are "SELLabrating" our resources.
AND….what about what they say about the bombs? Everybody knows the bombs on the NOAA charts are just a scam so that Army Corps contractors can spend millions in federal funds pretending to clean them up! The conservation a holes even accuse Army Corps of this!
What have the local fishermen and conservationists ever done for Culebra anyway? Well…. except that Marine Protected Area, oh yeah and those coral farms…and oh yeah years ago, the local fishermen helped to organize the end of US NAVY and NATO abuse of these islands as military target practice…but really, besides that?
At least finally we can all rejoice at seeing the floating condo-hotel of progress grinding its engines and belching diesel in the bay! A natural resource isn't a “resource” unless you exploit it!” That’s human nature and we are the humans! We are the POSITIVE humans…"Welcome Tourist!" The Negative humans want to protect coastal water quality blah blah blah……never good enough for them! More=More and When in the Caribbean hasnt more been better....well besides what happened to most of the smaller Caribbean islands from this....besides that."
NEXT WEEK’s prediction:
“ Wait…What did you say? The high-demand tourists from the cruise are complaining about local service times? They’re not tipping? They are not happy on this little nature island? They did not like their “G-FORCE” taxi ride to the beach, even though technically they were younger when they arrived given the physical ramifications of exceeding light speed as you launch into the air on the hill on the way to Flamenco… What? …
They are dissing Culebra on Trip Advisor?” they are calling it
“Another Paradise Spoiled”
Damn, who could have seen that coming?”
They are dissing Culebra on Trip Advisor?” they are calling it
“Another Paradise Spoiled”
Damn, who could have seen that coming?”
WE DESERVE A PUBLIC HEARING >>>>>>>>
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