In 2017 two hurricanes, Irma and then Maria, crossed Vieques within two weeks and left this ceiba stripped bare, its big branches broken. By March 2019 it was in flower again, news that NPR carried across the United States. The tree is the reason for the park around it. The land was part of the US Navy's holdings on Vieques until the Navy left in 2004. Residents started clearing it themselves, and in 2012 the municipality declared it a nature reserve, now run by a community organisation. In 2024 Climate Tracker Caribbean counted it the third most visited place on the island, with thousands of visitors a year, and reported that a Senate bill to protect it further had been pocket-vetoed by the governor. How old the ceiba is, nobody has measured. The University of Virginia's project page says about 350 years, a local site says a little over three centuries, and other accounts reach 400. Ceibas grow fast, so read those numbers as respect rather than dating. What you meet is a great kapok at the centre of a park that exists because people on the island decided it should. If you know its girth or have a photograph of it, tell us.
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Getting there
Parque La Ceiba de Vieques, Mosquito, Vieques, Puerto Rico
You can recognise it as the great kapok the park is named after, at the centre of Parque La Ceiba on the north side of Vieques.
Parque La Ceiba is a community-run nature reserve, declared by the Vieques municipality in 2012, open to visitors. Opening hours and any fee not confirmed.
North side of Vieques, west of the airport near Mosquito Pier, a few minutes by car west of Isabel Segunda along Route 200. Vieques is reached by ferry or plane from mainland Puerto Rico.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.