Cayo Norte, formerly West Key or North East Key is the largest privately owned island in Puerto Rico and is currently the property of Google co-founder

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American businessman, computer engineer and computer scientist best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when ...

via SVI Investments, Inc. The island is located about 0.6 nautical mile (1.0 km) northeast of Culebra Island. It lies 21 nautical miles (36 km) east of

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

and 12 nautical miles (20 km) west of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The island is part of the municipality of Culebra and therein of the

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city delimited by functional (e.g. residential, comm ...

San Isidro. It is the only privately owned island in the Culebra archipelago, and is not part of the

Culebra National Wildlife Refuge The Culebra National Wildlife Refuge (Spanish: ''Refugio nacional de vida silvestre de Culebra'') is a National Wildlife Refuge in Puerto Rico. It is part of the Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which is a unit of the U.S. F ...

as are most of the other nearby islands and keys.

Geography

Cayo Norte is the first island to

starboard Port and starboard are Glossary of nautical terms (M-Z), nautical terms for watercraft and spacecraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the Bow (watercraft), bow (front). Vessels with bil ...

when traveling through the Virgin Passage from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

to the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. It is somewhat oval in shape, with hills gently sloping to the sandy beaches on the south coast. The north coast is a rocky cliff. The highest elevation, located in the middle of the western half of the island, is at . Its area is about . The hills on the eastern half of the island are mostly covered with bushes (croton rigidus). There are wooded zones along the south coast, in the valleys and on the western slopes.

History

In 1895, during the initial Spanish colonization of Culebra Island, title to Cayo Norte was ceded to José Morales and Francisco de los Santos. In 1902 title was conveyed to Leopoldo Padrón. Majority ownership of Cayo Norte stayed in the Padrón family until 2004. In 2006 100% ownership was acquired by SVI Investments, Inc., a family corporation, for use as a private retreat. Cayo Norte is the only island in the Culebra archipelago that was not subject to bombardment by the U.S. Navy. A study made for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2007 states that "Impact of Cayo Norte was planned n 1924but that difficulties clearing people and cows from the island kept it from being used for an impact area. No

UXO Unexploded ordnance (UXO, sometimes abbreviated as UO) and unexploded bombs (UXBs) are explosive weapons (bombs, shells, grenades, land mines, naval mines, cluster munition, and other munitions) that did not explode when they were deploye ...

has been identified on Cayo Norte." In 2018, Google co-founder

purchased the island for $32 million through two transactions – the first for a large parcel of land on the island, priced at $28.7 million, followed by another smaller purchase of $3.4 million. The transactions were made through U.S. Virgin Island Properties, an LLC belonging to him and his wife, Lucinda Southworth.

Wildlife

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified a beach on the southcoast of Cayo Norte as a critical habitat for two species of endangered sea turtles, the

hawksbill sea turtle The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution that is largel ...

(''Eretmochelys imbricata'') and the

green sea turtle The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exte ...

(''Chelonia mydas''). There are no listed endangered species of fauna or flora in upland Cayo Norte.U.S. Corps. of Engineers, file number SAJ-2010-01592-IP-EWG

References

{{Reflist Islands of Puerto Rico Culebra, Puerto Rico Private islands of the United States Private islands of the Caribbean