Mar 15, 20223 min read

Tours in Vieques, Puerto Rico

Vieques is a gem. It offers that traditional Caribbean vibe with significantly less development than its counterparts. You can often find your group to be the only one at a beach! With that remoteness though, comes more requirement to plan – an aspect that is often lacking in today’s culture of trip planning as many people prefer to ‘fly by the seat of their pants.’ While more populated tourist destinations and cities offer the convenience of last-minute booking, Vieques is not that kind of place. It is not unheard of for rental cars to get booked out months in advance, leaving only golf cart rentals available up until a few weeks before, depending on the season. The most popular tours can also be booked out weeks to months in advance. This is due to the small size of the companies in Vieques – often only offering 4 to 6 spaces on a boat trip or a max of 10 spaces on a shore-snorkel or bioluminescent bay tour.

For us, Crystal Clear, we are a small company consisting of two guides leading shore-entry snorkeling tours to the best locations around Vieques. Our specialty is the education about organisms that we provide as we snorkel. Additionally, we put a portion of every tour towards our diseased coral treatment work that we do voluntarily (www.viequescoralconservation.com). During our tours, we see the most beautiful variety of reef fish, organisms like split-crown feather dusters and flamingo tongue sea snails, turtles, and sometimes rays. The maximum number of people per tour is 10. During holidays and school vacations, our spots disappear weeks in advance, with some availability left the week of. We encourage you to call, even if last minute, but our ability to accommodate a last-minute request is very low. Calling the day before the tour can sometimes be accommodated, but calling the day-of will often not get a response until the end of the day after we have finished with tours. We do both the tours and answer the phone, so we may be in the water when you call.

There are a few factors to consider when booking with us. If you are booking from November to April, you will need your own transportation to take our tour. We do not provide transportation and our snorkeling location is not taxi-accessible. During the winter months, we go to a location that has consistently better visibility than others at that time of the year. With the snorkel tour aside, we really don’t recommend coming to Vieques without transportation booked anyways. There are so many beautiful sights to see that are not taxi-accessible. We also emphasize that if you use sunblock, it must be mineral based (toxic sunblock is not allowed). We do offer a local brand for sale called Mother Flower Products ( https://www.motherflowerproducts.com/ ), to keep you and the ocean healthy during your vacation. With just a little bit of foresight, you will have the perfect, Vieques vacation. Give us a call at 787.242.1071 to book your tour today!