Route | Fajardo ⇆ Vieques, Puerto Rico |
---|---|
Carries | passengers and cargo |
Authority | Maritime Transport Authority |
The Vieques Ferry or Lancha de Vieques, is a ferry system that carries passengers and cargo from Ceiba, Puerto Rico to Vieques, Puerto Rico and vice versa, both complementing and competing with commercial air service available from San Juan, Puerto Rico to the island of Vieques.
A typical ticket from Ceiba to Vieques (or from Vieques to Fajardo) costs US$2 one-way and US$4 round-trip. [1]
The Vieques Ferry system runs services from and to Ceiba each day of the week for passengers, and from Mondays to Fridays for cargo-only travel. [2] There is a similar ferry service from Ceiba to Culebra, an island located slightly northwest of Vieques. That service is named Culebra Ferry, or Lancha de Culebra.
On January 1, 2000, the Puerto Rican Government passed ownership of all legal passenger ship services to the Puerto Rican Maritime Transport Authority. This was made mostly to enhance service between Culebra, Fajardo and Vieques.
On October 16, 2013, Ceiba mayor Angelo Cruz Ramos requested that the Fajardo-Vieques ferry service go from Ceiba to Vieques instead, alleging that it would only take 25 minutes to get from Ceiba to Vieques and vice versa by boat, cutting the travel time between Vieques and mainland Puerto Rico by more than one hour. [3] The stop was later moved to Ceiba. [4]
On November 8, 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union made allegations that diabetic people were not being allowed to eat inside the ferries during the trips between Fajardo and Vieques. [5] On January 16, 2014, 10 passengers interrupted a trip from Fajardo to Vieques because they thought the boat named Cayo Largo, was leaving for Culebra instead of Vieques. Police intervened and the boat was able to leave two hours later. [6]
On September 19, 2023, it was announced that the Puerto Rican government had signed contracts worth $70 million with the Conrad Shipyards company to build new ships for the services to Vieques and to Culebra. [7]
Transportation in Puerto Rico includes a system of roads, highways, freeways, airports, ports and harbors, and railway systems, serving a population of approximately 4 million year-round. It is funded primarily with both local and federal government funds.
Vieques, officially Isla de Vieques, is an island and municipality of Puerto Rico, a United States territory in the northeastern Caribbean. Vieques is part of a group of islands sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands; Puerto Rico, as a whole, is located just west of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Vieques is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and retains its strong Spanish influence after 400 years of Spanish colonial presence in the island.
Prinair is a Puerto Rican charter operator airline. It was Puerto Rico's domestic and international flag carrier airline for almost two decades from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Despite previously ceasing scheduled commercial operations twice, it restarted charter flights in 2019.
Isla Culebra is an island, town and municipality of Puerto Rico and geographically part of the Spanish Virgin Islands. It is located approximately 17 miles (27 km) east of the Puerto Rican mainland, 12 miles (19 km) west of St. Thomas and 9 miles (14 km) north of Vieques. Culebra is spread over 5 barrios and Culebra Pueblo (Dewey), the main town and the administrative center of the island. Residents of the island are known as culebrenses. With a population of 1,792 as of the 2020 Census, it is Puerto Rico's least populous municipality.
Vieques Air Link is a small VFR(Visual Flight Rules) Puerto Rico-based airline that operates under FAR Part 135, that links Vieques and Culebra with mainland Puerto Rico.
Fajardo is a town and a municipality part of the San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area in Puerto Rico.
Culebra Air Services, established in 1998 as Air Culebra, is a small Puerto Rican airline company that operates out of the island of Culebra, in Puerto Rico, and the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, in San Juan. As of 2015, the airline is owned by pilot, captain Matthew Mulvey.
Ceiba is both a small town and a municipality in northeast Puerto Rico. It is named after the famous Ceiba tree. Ceiba is located in the north-east coast of the island, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, south of Fajardo, north of Naguabo and southeast of Río Grande. Located about one hour's driving distance from San Juan, Ceiba is spread over 7 barrios and Ceiba Pueblo. It is part of the Fajardo Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Cataño Ferry is a single-route ferry service between Cataño and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ferry is an icon in Puerto Rican culture.
The Port of San Juan is a seaport facility located in the metropolitan area of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The Spanish Virgin Islands, formerly called the Passage Islands and also known as the Puerto Rican Virgin Islands, West Virgin Islands, primarily consisting of the islands of Culebra and Vieques, are part of the archipelago of Puerto Rico, and located east of the main island of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean.
Air Flamenco is a commuter airline operated by Air Charter, Inc., based in Puerto Rico.
José Aponte de la Torre Airport is a public use airport owned by Puerto Rico Ports Authority and located 2.3 mi (3.7 km) from Ceiba, a coastal town in Puerto Rico. It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation airport. The airport also offers scheduled passenger service via three commercial airlines to the islands of Vieques and Culebra, Puerto Rico.
Alba Nidia "Miss Pupa" Encarnación Ayala was a sixth-grade public school teacher and community leader in Vieques, Puerto Rico. A devoted Catholic, she always put God first; and that was her foundation, passion and strength for living a life of service to others. She advocated for the rights of the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico in general. She was the voice for better Maritime Transportation and health services which are crucial for the people of Vieques, Women's rights, the poor and the outcast; fought against prejudice, racism and injustice. She also helped lead the movement to end U.S. Navy bombings in the island-municipality and have the lands expropriated by the Navy in the 1940s returned to civilian use. She died on 11 March 2012 in the hospital del Maestro in Vieques, due to complications of diabetes.
The Culebra Ferry, or Lancha de Culebra, also referred to by locals simply as La Lancha, is a ferry service that links the cities of Culebra and Ceiba, Puerto Rico. It is used by Culebra locals and tourists, both for work and vacation-related trips.
Ensenada Honda, is an inlet on Puerto Rico's northeastern coast, in the municipality of Ceiba. Early indigenous resistance and the absence of gold kept cash-strapped colonial administrations mostly away from the region, which in time grew into a pirate and smuggling hub. In the 19th century, the bay's harbor facilitated the growth of the sugarcane industry, and in the 20th century, it hosted the Roosevelt Roads U.S. Naval Station. At present, a Reserve Component maintains a military presence in the area, but the inlet, along with a civilian airport, is the focus of local tourism and the fishing industry. As part of negotiations with the U.S. Navy, Ensenada Honda is also the object of preservation projects.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Puerto Rico was an ongoing viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2010 Aguas Buenas earthquake, also referred to as the 2010 Christmas Eve earthquake, occurred on December 24 at 7:43 p.m. local time in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. It measured 5.1 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong). The event was the largest in Puerto Rico since May 16th of the same year, and the largest to impact the San Juan metropolitan area since 1975. The earthquake was felt throughout the island of Puerto Rico, the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra, the American and British Virgin Islands, and even in the Dominican Republic across the Mona Passage.
The government of Alejandro García Padilla was formed in the weeks following the 2012 Puerto Rico gubernatorial election and was sworn in initially in January 2013, with some confirmations coming in later. It featured a pro-Independence secretary, a non-partisan Secretary of Governance, as well as the continuation of the previous PNP administrations' Commissioner of Safety and Public Protection.