Ola Lola's Garden Bar

Long strange winter

2012-02-01T08:51:00.002-04:00

What a strange winter it's been! It's been so mild in the north with little snow - especially after last year! - and really no major winter storms.

There have been lots of stories about how bad this winter has been for ski resorts and other businesses that depend on winter but the mild winter in the north affects our business as well. I'm certainly not saying we're devastated like some of the ski areas; overall we're having a good season. But there are things we're noticing.

There is nothing like a good winter storm battering the Northeast to send snowbirds flocking south to warmer climes, including here. And once those storms clear the coast and head out into the Atlantic, they generate waves that draw surfers. There hasn't been one of those storms - yet. So surf has been small. The forecasts are calling for a little bump tomorrow and then a bigger swell Sunday into Monday. We'll see.

A series of low-pressure fronts marching across us one after the other has led to a flat, chilly, cloudy, windy winter so far. Last year was the driest winter with nearly three months without rain. This year it has rained a little almost every day.

Not everyone is complaining though. The kite surfers and windsurfers are having a great time with sometimes a dozen or more kiters enjoying the ride at Shacks.

A hot night for chillin'

2012-01-30T08:19:00.000-04:00

Sunday was a great night for chillin' at Ola Lola's as chili took the stage at the Second Ever Chillin' Chili Fest.

Nine contestants brought chili ranging from mild to wild with such exotic ingredients as iguana. In the end a panel of 10 randomly selected judges choose their favorite. And the winner is - none other than our own Pichi! She was absolutely thrilled to to win the coveted Ola Lola's Chili Bowl.

After the judging everybody dug in to sample some really amazing chilies. As the judges deliberated and the crowd chowed, our favorite jazz quartet Sabor Groove lit up the night with some truly tasty jazz licks. Look for Sabor Groove back at Ola Lola's in February.

It was a hot night for chillin' at Ola Lola's! The Third Ever Chillin' Chili Fest will be back on January 27, 2013, the Sunday before the Super Bowl. Who knows - maybe next year you will win the Chili Bowl!

Lights out!

2012-01-25T22:05:00.004-04:00

Many people (not just us) have said that Ola Lola's is a very special place, fitting nicely in this magical corner of la isla. Monday night was just more proof of that.

Monday night was one of the most fun, interesting, crazy, weird awesome nights we've spent at Ola Lola's. And that's saying something!

The afternoon started pretty normally until the power went out about 4:00 pm. With no power, we cannot serve food. Every time the refrigerator or freezer are opened, cold escapes. If the outage lasts too long, food begins to spoil. As long as the doors remain closed, food will stay frozen and cold enough for up to 24 hours. Plus, as night falls, the kitchen staff can't see to prepare food.

So we hung a lantern in the bar and put candles on the tables. We served drinks and beer to all comers. True, a number of would-be diners left in a bit of desperation (we are one of the few restaurants open on Monday nights). But a number of people hung around - and hung around! - waiting for the power to come back on. Others came and went. A couple of people who went came back.

For us, it was an easy night. Elaine and Pichi and Dottie actually got to sit down with guests and socialize.

When the lights suddenly came on at 10:00 pm, the dozen or so people who were still sitting around booed! We quickly turned out all the lights except those in the bar itself.

I've done a terrible job describing the magical feeling but trust me, it was there. We're even talking about doing a lights out night once in a while. Like the electric company doesn't provide us with enough!

First KAP session of the new year

2012-01-22T08:39:00.002-04:00

I went out for my first KAP (kite aerial photography) session of the new year. The original plan was to KAP the yola on the beach. When I got out there, the yola was gone! At first I figured it had floated off the beach and started to drift and break up on the reef. It was no where to be found. Looks like somebody put a rope on it and hauled it off the beach and out to sea. That's actually good news.

But the "bay" at Shacks was full of kite surfers, the wind was a (relatively) steady 20+ knots, down from 30 the day before. Looked like a great day for KAPping.

When I downloaded the pictures, I found a had a total of three images from a two-hour session. Panic!!! Did something happen to the camera? No, it was fine. The remote control transmitter? It was working okay. Ah! The servo that pushes the shutter button. It was stuck. It would move manually but not with a signal from the radio. I tried various combinations and it looks like the servo is the culprit.

I'm waiting a new servo. Once that's replaced later this week, I'll try again.

Marti

2012-01-15T10:12:00.003-04:00

Seven years ago today our mother died. We miss her every day but her spirit continues to guide us and inspire us. Thank you, Marti. We love you!

Another landing

2012-01-13T07:02:00.006-04:00

In the early hours of Tuesday morning a yola from the Dominican Republic landed on our beach.

There was less of a mess on the beach than usual but it appears there were more women on this boat than usual: panties in the sand and a bra left on the boat:

a snazzy flipflop:

a couple of purses, already ransacked either by Border Patrol or looters:

makeup:

We've written before about the sad human cost of these boats. But there is a nearly-as-sad environmental impact as well. This boat was driven across the reef to get to the beach. Who knows what damage was done there. Plastic bags and bottles are just left both in the boat and on the beach. Discarded clothes are left for looters and the ones the looters don't want are just left. Border Patrol doesn't pick up any trash; their job is picking up illegal immigrants. The local police don't do anything. You would think Recursos Naturales (the department of natural resources) would get involved but that would require them to get out of their air conditioned SUVs and actually get out on the beach. Tain't happenin'. Eventually somebody will make a bonfire in the boat. (Officials of both the Coast Guard and Border Patrol swear it's not them.) That will burn off some of the fiberglass resin and release it into the air. Eventually waves and tides will drag the boat back across the reef, then back onto the shore, then back across the reef and rocks again until it begins to break up. Big sheets of fiberglass will come loose and drift on the current until they lodge in some part of the reef. Eventually the sheets will be broken into smaller and smaller bits. The skeleton of the boat will bleach on the beach until it eventually rots. In two or three years there will be no obvious sign the boat was ever here.

Happy birthday, Dottie and Mina!

2012-01-11T08:01:00.001-04:00

What a great party at the beachhouse last night! We were celebrating our friend (and co-worker) Dottie's and her mother Mina's birthdays. They were born on the same date. Great food, great music, dancing, singing - everything a party should be. And as a bonus, a beautiful full moon over the ocean:

We know the year is less than a month old but this is already one of the best parties of the year!

More Vieques

2012-01-07T07:58:00.001-04:00

On the ferry dock on Vieques looking back at Isabel Segunda

Getting to Vieques is pretty easy. We decided to take the ferry, one, for the experience and two, because it's only $2 each way. The ferry makes three round trips daily from Fajardo. Depending on seas, the trip to or from Vieques takes about an hour. But get to the ferry dock early and get your ticket. Between tourists and locals the boat is usually full. There are several airlines that fly to Vieques from the Big Island as well. Air fares range from about $20 to about $70 each way. The amount of luggage you can take on the airplanes is limited. That's another advantage of the ferry: you can take as much as you want to carry

Since much of the island is off-limits, getting around on Vieques is pretty easy as well. There are only two towns, Isabel Segunda on the north coast (where the ferry docks) and Esperanza on the south coast (where the beaches are). Publicos (taxis) are around pretty much all the time to take you back and forth or out to the beaches. They are especially common in Isabel II when the ferry docks. Since Vieques is only four miles wide, it's a short trip between the two.

There are a number of local car rental companies on Vieques. No big names though. Reservations are highly recommended. Our trip was pretty last minute and there were no cars available. We managed to rent a scooter for three days from a place on the beach in Esperanza.

There are only a few main roads on the island. Two run north and south between Isabel II and Esperanza. One runs through the Nature Reserve out to most of the beaches. Another runs to the extreme west end of the island. At the edge of another area of nature preserve the pavement gives way to a reasonably well-maintained gravel road that goes through the preserve to Green Beach.

Somewhat surprisingly, the main roads are very good. Even in the "rural" areas, the roads and mostly wider and better maintained that those on the Big Island. This may be one of the few positive legacies of the Navy occupation.

Finding gas for your vehicle can be a problem. There are only two gas stations on the island, right across the road from each other in Isabel II. Gas, like all supplies for the island, come in a truck brought over on a ferry. The gas truck comes twice a week (usually). People line up for hours to get gas. And when they run out, they run out. No more gas til the truck comes again.

It's the same for food and beer. We found two "grocery" stores on the island. The largest of the two, near the plaza in Isabel II, we never did see open. The other, The Green Store in Esperanza, would be a large well-stocked colmado (a sort of local convenience store) here. There are a lot of little colmados on the island that stock mostly canned goods. They all have the usual assortment of beer - Medalla, Corona, Heineken - all in the little 7 oz. "shot glass" bottles. Finding a full size beer outside the restaurants and bars proved to be a bit of a challenge. There is one colmado right in the center of the island on carr. 997, the "main' road between Isabel II and Esperanza, that sort of "caters" to gringo touristas. We found full 12 oz beers there. (I don't know why those 5 ounces make such a difference!)

We were told beforehand that food is expensive on Vieques so we took a most of our nonperishables with us so the grocery store wasn't a big issue.

We have more about food in the restaurants coming up.

Feliz Dia de Reyes!

2012-01-06T09:12:00.002-04:00

It's a cloudy rainy start to Dia de Reyes here on our magic corner of the island but it's a great day anyway.

Happy Three Kings Day!!

First surf photo session of the new year

2012-01-05T20:01:00.002-04:00

I love all the "firsts" of a new year. Yesterday was my first surf photo session of the new year, a fun morning session at Middles Beach. The photos from the session are on our website, PuertoRicoSurfPhoto.com.

Everybody had great expectations for today. Forecast said surf over head-high and clean. Well, it was head high in some places but it was clean. It was what the surfers call "washing machine." and that's a pretty apt description. It was messy and agitated and pretty much unsurfable.

Ah, well. Tomorrow's another day and another shot at it. We'll see. Forecasts for tomorrow are still calling for overhead waves but choppy. It's supposed to drop off a bit over the next few days. Hopefully that will clean it up some.

Favorite Vieques beaches

2012-01-03T05:56:00.000-04:00

We spent as much time as possible exploring the beaches on Vieques. As we wrote before, the beaches are stunningly beautiful, especially if you want to go hang out on the beach, sipping beer or margaritas, reading and/or sunbathing. Beyond the beer and margaritas, our idea of going to the beach is to DO something - fly kites, ride horses, run dogs, snorkel or SCUBA dive. Since we didn't take kites, horses or dogs and all the SCUBA trips were booked, that left snorkeling. And Snorkel we did! We explored the waters at every beach we went to.

I think our favorite "hang out" beach, the most beautiful, was Media Luna (Half Moon). Like most of the beaches we visited, Media Luna was not a great snorkeling beach. We are somewhat spoiled by the reefs around us here at home in Isabela. Despite the damage that's been done to them, the reefs are alive and have a lot of varied sealife to see. In contrast, we found few reefs on Vieques. There is a lot of seagrass and while there is a lot of life in the grass, it is much harder to see.

Some of the areas we snorkeled had this weird other-worldly almost post-apocalyptic feel to them. White sand covered everything and the coral - what there was of it - seemed strangled. The sand was all stirred up so visibility was limited.

One notable exception was Green beach on the far west end of the island. This is the one place we snorkeled over what we considered healthy reef. It was also the clearest water with the best visibility of any of the beaches. We didn't see it but another couple snorkeling on another part of the reef saw a spotted eagle ray.

Far and away our favorite snorkeling encounter was with this guy at Blue Beach, also known as La Chiva.

This guy was not at all shy and didn't mind swimming with company. We swam with him for 10 minutes or so.

The only beach we wanted to see but didn't was Navio. Navio is down a dirt road beyond Media Luna. The road was muddy and had water-filled holes. We decided that was not the best place for our little scooter.

We also didn't do the bioluminescent bay tour. You have to have guide for these tours to protect the bay and all the operators were booked when we were there.

Sounds like reasons to go back to me!

No kites?!?!?!?

2012-01-02T19:37:00.000-04:00

It has been a tradition that we fly kites on New Year's Day. For 10 years we actually had a New Year's Day kite festival held on a frozen lake in Michigan. After I left the parks department that sponsored the event, we kept the tradition alive gathering and flying with friends. We even had a mini-festival the first year we were here in Puerto Rico.

This year, for only the second time since 1990, we did not fly kites. However, family horseback riding on the beach could become a new tradition.

First, Miguel and Elaine took a ride on Chocolate and KTJ. They met up with Amy, Kennedy, Kaiden, Amber and Jazz and me on the beach.

Then it was Kennedy's turn to ride Chocolate with her abuela. (Kennedy truly believes Chocolate is her horse. When her Daddy rode off, she was nearly heart-broken. I picked her up and quietly asked, "is Daddy riding your horse?" Without lifting her head off my shoulder she just nodded.)

And then Amy got a short ride on Chocolate.

When we got back to the "ranch," I even took a little ride on KTJ. That's the first time I've ridden her. She really is a sweet responsive horse. And big! It's a long way up there in that saddle.

New Year's Eve

2012-01-01T09:27:00.000-04:00

When we arrived here five years ago there was a small group that gathered on the beach at Shacks to toast the last sunset of the old year and to wish each other well in the approaching new year. Every year more and more people have joined the gathering and kept the tradition not only alive but growing and spreading. New Year's Eve 2011 was no exception. More people than ever, visitors and locals alike, came to the beach to watch the sun go down for the final time in 2011.

May 2012 be a joyous and prosperous year for us all! Happy New Year!

Vieques!

2011-12-30T08:03:00.001-04:00

We spent Christmas morning with Amy, Miguel, Kennedy, Kai and our nephew Ben. Then we came back to our house when Ben (who is a chef) fixed us a fabulous Christmas lunch.

After lunch, we headed east for our first vacation in six years. We spent Christmas night at a friends in Fajardo and on Boxing Day morning we boarded the ferry for Vieques.

Vieques is the largest of the islands off the eastern point of "la isla grande" (the big island) of Puerto Rico, south and east of Fajardo. We (obviously) live on an island and for us to go to "the mainland" means going to the States. For Vieques residents, Puerto Rico is the mainland. They take the ferry back and forth to work, to go shopping, for a lot to things.

Vieques is an island of contrasts. The beaches - especially on the southern Caribbean side - are everything a Caribbean beach should be: stunning long arcs of brilliant white sugar sand melting into sparkling blue waters. Much of the eastern third of the island, including many of the best beaches, is a nature preserve under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is a wildlife refuge in part to keep people out. This is the part of the island the U.S. Navy and Marines used for live-fire target practice from 1948 until 2003. There is so much unexploded ordinance and contamination in this part of the island no one is allowed except for a narrow strip along the shore to reach the beaches. So there is all this natural beauty but it's really only protected because it's not safe to go there.

The Navy took over two-thirds (22,000 of 33,000 acres) in 1941, displacing two-thirds of the population. The Navy began live-fire bombing exercises on Vieques in 1948 and continued until 2003.

There were sporadic protests against the bombing exercises and the Navy's occupation of the island over the years. Protests started in earnest in 1999 when a civilian Navy employee, Vieques-native David Sanes, was killed when two bombs dropped by a Marine Corps jet missed their target by a mile-and-a-half. The Navy stopped targeting Vieques and left the island in May, 2003.

We'll have more on our trip to Vieques over the coming days. Unfortunately, there won't be a lot of photos. The memory card that had most of the pictures from the trip imploded and is now dead. Sad, but we have memories and we'll try to share them in words.

5 years...ways we know we're part of it all

2011-12-29T05:45:00.007-04:00

Happy Anniversary to US and to Ola Lola's!
Seven years ago today we got married on a beach in Barbados.

Five years ago today we opened Ola Lola's in Puerto Rico.

You know you’ve become part of the Puerto Rican flora and fauna when:

You are on a first-name basis with the frog(s) in your bathroom.

Lizards are a regular wall decoration in your home.

Six-foot iguanas sitting in the middle of the road or hanging out in the trees don’t even phase you.

You own a Mazda pick-up truck and think nothing of putting a few pieces of wood rail across the back and sides and using it to haul 2 horses.

Horses loose in a neighborhood are no cause for alarm.

You wake up at 3:00 am, 4:00am, 5:00 am and 6:00 am to a rooster crowing under your window.

You go to sleep with a thousand chirping coquis (tree frogs) as your lullaby.

You see a woman tying up her goat or cow outside a store while she goes in to get a few groceries.

You see not one, but several, older men riding 1-speed bicycles as their primary means of transportation, often pulling a cart full of cut grasses to take back for their horses.

You are on the beach and see a pack of dogs – all sizes and shapes – while you eat your picnic lunch, and all of them either stay away or come over closer with their tails wagging, looking for handouts.

You go to the airport and see people with their dogs INSIDE the airport waiting to greet relatives or friends getting off the plane.

You see a horse in a field and there’s an egret sitting on top of it while it’s grazing.

You use a weed whacker or machete as your primary means of “mowing the lawn” and as soon as you finish, it’s grown enough you need to start again.

Horses tied in empty river beds or alongside the road with a rope around their neck are a common sight.

You have to wait on a major highway while dozens of cattle cross it to move from one pasture to another.

You’re watching a hummingbird dart from one hibiscus plant to another while you hear a hawk’s cry as it soars over the cliff.

While you’re out snorkeling, you see sea turtles, reef squid, spotted eagle rays, thousands of different fish, eels, crabs, flounders, bristle worms, sea urchins, and maybe even a dolphin, nurse shark or a manatee.

FELICIDADES!

2011-12-25T05:57:00.000-04:00

Merry Christmas from us!

Most perfect food?

2011-12-18T06:00:00.001-04:00

This is what's left of a pizza empanada or fritura purchased from the food vendor at the cockfights in San Antonio. Basically it's pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese wrapped in a flour dough and then deep fried.

Deep fried pizza. Is there anything better than that?

Actually, it's not all that good. It should be much better than it is.

Cockfight in the streets of San Antonio

2011-12-18T05:40:00.002-04:00

So I had to go to the post office in San Antonio. I'm cruising along until the main street through San Antonio is blocked off and has a tent in the middle of it. Que pasa?

Turns out there is a Saturday afternoon practice/training/demonstration cockfight in the middle of town.

I am in no way any kind of fan of any kind of animal - dogs, roosters, people - fighting. But I admit to a certain fascination with the culture of cockfighting. Why? Why do people do this? There was a sense of a community "fair" about this: families and children gathered around, everybody talking about the merits of this rooster or another, food vendors hawking empanadias and soft drinks and beer. One teenager rode up on a scooter with his wire cage draped over the handlebars and his fighting cock under his arm. (I am truly sorry I missed that picture!)

Cockfighting is a very old "sport." (I used the term guardedly.) For a long time it was quite pervasive in the islands all over the Caribbean. Louisiana was the last state in the US to outlaw cockfighting - and that was just in 2008. Now it's just underground instead of out in the open.

Cockfighting - and betting on cockfights - is still legal here in Puerto Rico. There is nothing underground about it here. I know people who make their living raising and fighting cocks. Part of the "demonstration" in San Antonio was to display and market fighting cocks to potential buyers.

We didn't actually get to see a cockfight, even a demonstration one. The fights weren't scheduled to start until 3:00 and we had to get back to open Ola Lola's. One of the things on my to-do list is to make a documentary abut this culture here on the island. Maybe I'll understand it better then.

Probably not.

Shaken, not stirred

2011-12-17T08:29:00.004-04:00

"I feel the earth move under my feet"

Last night we felt not one but three temblors/terremotos/earthquakes. According to the Puerto Rico Seismic network between 2:06 and 2:14 am, there were three quakes in the same area offshore in the Mona Passage about 10 miles west of Mayaquez. Mayaquez is about an hour drive south of us.

The two stronger quakes, magnitude 5.1 and 5.3 respectively, were in almost exactly the same spot about three minutes apart. We felt them shake the house enough to wake us up. I've looked around and I don't see any damage. So far nobody has reported any damage on Facebook.

Earthquakes are pretty common all around la isla. In fact there have been four more quakes in that same are of the Mona Passage since the three last night. We just don't feel most of them. Most are in the magnitude 2.1 - 3.2 range with occasional 4.+ "events." Most are offshore and fairly deep (10-40 km) deep in the earth's crust. But every now and then we get a surprise.

Last night was one of those times and one of those surprises.

Crazy wind, waves and beach art

2011-12-16T10:54:00.001-04:00

The wind and the waves have been crazy the past couple of days. We're used to strong trade winds but this has been wild even for us. So after all the surfing of the past two weeks, we've had a couple of days of weather-induced layoff.

We took Kennedy to the beach Thursday afternoon to see the big waves. Elaine wrote Kennedy's name in the sand just above the wave line.

Kennedy thought this was so cool she got a big stick and started drawing in the sand herself.

It was so much fun to watch her create her beach masterpiece. She has amazing talent and motor skills for such a little one.

A couple of good weeks for surfing

2011-12-15T12:34:00.000-04:00

Tuesday was maybe the most fun day I've seen at Surfers Beach. It was certainly the busiest, most crowded. But there were so many good waves, there seemed to be plenty for everybody. I shot more pictures than I have in a long time. That's great, except for the time it takes to edit them. But I managed to condense nearly 500 down to just over 200 to post on the website.

Fun times, fun times! If I can't be diving myself, shooting pictures of surfers is my next favorite activity here.

Party on the Lola Deck

2011-12-12T07:57:00.000-04:00

Rique Colón, a popular local musician, made his debut on the Lola Deck last night. And yes, that is our own Dottie Griffin sittin' in on percussion. Dottie used to be in a band in Florida and she's been counting the hours 'til she could perform with Rique.

It was a great fun night with a wonderful - make that two wonderful - performers. Thanks To Rique for performing and to everyone who came out to party with us.

It's not all surf

2011-12-09T07:47:00.000-04:00

Last night a great group of us gathered at One-Ten Thai to celebrated our friend Mary's birthday. A great group of people and a great dinner come together to celebrate a great lady!

Happy birthday, Mary, from all of us!

A two-session day

2011-12-08T13:51:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a two-session day. We got out to shoot both morning and sunset at Wilderness. It was nice to have the time to do that. We don't often get out twice a day so this was a special treat.

You can see all the best photos from both sessions on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com

So much for diving

2011-12-07T05:56:00.001-04:00

Well, that last dive appears to have been a one-shot deal for a while. For now, SURF'S UP!

Got some beautiful pictures at a sunset session at Wilderness yesterday. I love it when the light gets behind the wave and it glows like turquoise neon.

All the photos from this session are up on our website, PuertoRicoSurfPhoto.com. Take a few minutes and check them out.

Scuba diving - finally!

2011-11-27T06:14:00.000-04:00

Diving has just sucked here for a while. Between waves and windchop and rain flooding the ocean with mud from up in the mountains it's just been terrible. Yesterday I finally went diving for the first time since AUGUST! That's just wrong!

We were supposed to go on an extended dive trip to Bonaire in September, but Elaine's father's final illness and death cancelled that. So it has been a long dry (literally) spell. Hopefully, conditions will improve and we'll get get to dive more soon.

This French angelfish was surprised to see us at Natural.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T08:39:00.000-04:00

Our friend Ana's son Luis with a turkey leg.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at our friend John's house with 30 or 40 (I lost count) family, friends and our extended Puerto Rican family. It was an afternoon filled with tons of love and sharing and of course tons of food.

We have so much to be grateful for in our lives. We are so happy we got to share the day with so many wonderful people. At the same time we missed our children, grandchildren, family and friends back in the States. The heart's ability to hold so many feelings - love and gratitude and joy for those you are with, the same love and gratitude and joy seasoned with the awareness of those you are not with - is truly wonderous.

We hope you all our absent family and friends had a joyous and wonder-filled Thanksgiving.

Fall colors on our beach

2011-11-20T09:52:00.000-04:00

The fall colors on our beach may be courtesy of the Sargasso Sea, roughly 500 miles north of us. This brown seaweed is fairly common in beach drift and washes up on our beaches occasionally but this is the most we've seen at one time.

This is sargassum, a free-floating seaweed that covers the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The "sea" is formed by and the seaweed is held in place by ocean currents that make the Atlantic Sub-tropical Gyre. The same currents dump garbage in this area creating the North Atlantic Garbage Dump, similar to the Great Pacific Garbage Dump. There was a lot of plastic debris trapped in the sargassum washed up on our beach.

The sargassum piled up on the hightide surfline. Amber and Jazz had a great time nuzzling through all the amazing (to them I assume) smells. It was unusual, beautiful and strange (and fun) to think it may have escaped the gyre and floated to our beach.

Happy birthday, Robin!

2011-11-17T06:07:00.000-04:00

We celebrated our friend Robin's birthday with a big ta-do at Mary George's villa at Villa Montaña - appropriate since Robin is the general manager of Villa Montaña. It was a night of fabulous food provided by Andy and Nastassia of OneTenThai restaurant, our second favorite restaurant on the island (after Ola Lola's of course).

The party had a Manchester United FC theme with everybody in red and black - except George and Andy who just had to come in Barcelona kit.

Robin didn't have any problems blowing out the candles on his ManU cake but it took a lot of convincing to get him to cut into it!

Happy birthday, Robin! We hope you're here with us for many many more!

Bodyboarders at Middles

2011-11-15T07:19:00.004-04:00

The International Bodyboarders Association (IBA) brought a major international competition to Middles Beach this month.

Bodyboarders get kind of short shift from hard-board surfers but I gotta tell ya, these were some pretty amazing athletes. They took on a week of big, blown, gnarly waves at Middles, waves most surfers I know would look at and say, "Naw. Not today." There are several sets of pictures on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com.

We had the opportunity to meet three of the top women bodyboarders in the world - Catrina Sousa from Portugal, Eunate Aguirre from Spain and Karla Costa Taylor from Brazil. Thank you, ladies for sharing your evening with us.

We posted pictures from the Women's finals and Men's semifinals on our the PuertoRicoSurfPhoto website.

El Encanto Pro didn't generate the levels of excitement the Rip Curl Pro Search surf competition did at the same time last year. It was a great event with some really nice people. No word yet as to whether they will be back but we'd love to see them back again next year.

Thank you party

2011-11-14T23:11:00.003-04:00

Just before Halloween we had a party to thank and introduce the people who made the new Ola Lola's possible. We were pleased and grateful that so many people were able to come. We did miss two key people though: David Pfaff, who did the original concept drawings and who's ideas permeate the new Ola Lola's, was at home in Carmel getting ready to celebrate his birthday on Halloween. And Elizabeth, who did so much to help us focus our thoughts into a concrete (or in this case wood) plan, was in St. Louis waiting for the birth of her daughter. Thank you to all who did come to the party. And thank you all for your help and support!

Congratulations, Kelly Slater

2011-11-03T06:42:00.000-04:00

Kelly Slater may be the best surfer of all time and is definitely on of the greatest athletes in the world. The guy is from another planet. Last year here in Puerto Rico he won his record-setting 10th world championship title.

Yesterday in San Francisco he bested his own record by winning his 11th world title.

Congratulations, Kelly! Hope to see you back in PR soon!!!

BTW, this photo was taken of Kelly during a fun session at Backdoor (near Surfers Beach) last year after the conclusion of the competition.

Sunset rainbow

2011-11-02T18:29:00.002-04:00

The sun was already below the horizon. The last few rays of light were hitting high clouds to the east, turning them a beautiful sunset pink.

Somewhere in those clouds rain was falling, rain that never reached the ground but had to be there none-the-less.

In that confluence of the sun's last rays and sky-high rain there appeared a sunset rainbow. It was just a faint arc high in the sky. It didn't last very long, just a few minutes as the last bit of sunlight faded away. It sure was amazing while it lasted!

I've never seen anything quite like that before. I've seen sundogs - a complete halo around the sun caused by ice crystals in the air - and halos around the moon (same cause) but never an arc of a rainbow high in the sunset clouds.

Pretty cool.

Another rider in the family

2011-10-19T19:29:00.003-04:00

Kennedy has been riding Chocolate almost since she moved to Puerto Rico. Originally she rode with her abuela Elaine but now she prefers the saddle to herself. And she likes to go fast! She prefers to ride on the beach (just like her abuela) but if the back pasture is all she can get, well, that's good enough.

Kennedy and Chocolate have a very special relationship. He knows when she's around. She can do just about anything around that horse and he just stands there, not moving, not even flicking his tail. When Kennedy was a bit smaller, she would run right underneath Chocolate's belly. (She still does it once in a while but she has to duck now.) She will run right up to him and hug his legs; he doesn't even flinch because he knows it's her, his little person. It truly is amazing and wonderful to watch those two together. It's gonna be even more fun as she grows up with him.

Corona Pro surf competition

2011-10-13T05:35:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the annual Coronal Pro surf competition at Middles Beach. For the firt time since I've been here, there were real actual honest-to-god waves!

There are so many other photographers at events like this, many of them "official," that I rarely bother shooting the actual surfers like I would on a non-contest day. I mean, who cares about just another shooter on the beach?

I prefer to give photographs of the event my own perspective, in this case a kite's-eye view. There were thousands of photos taken over the weekend. Many of them have been posted on websites all over. NO ONE else has photos of the event like this one. You can see more of the KAP (kite aerial photography) photos and a few surfer photos on our Flickr pages and on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com. Check 'em out and enjoy!

Rotten truths

2011-10-09T08:27:00.002-04:00

Been away from here for a while. I could give you lots of reasons but they would mostly be excuses. (Someone wrote "if it's not important, you'll find excuses. If it is important, you'll find a way." I like that.)

The the rotten truth is, I just haven't felt motivated to write. I've been here almost five years now. I'm no longer a "traveler" on this end of Puerto Rico. A lot of the "newness" (if not the adventure) has worn off. I guess I'm projecting my feelings about that onto all of you who read this blog. How many times do you want to see a picture of Shacks Beach as I walk over the dune? I love that sight. It is one of my favorite places and sights in the world. Every time I walk over that dune (and I walk over it at least once a day just about every day) it is an oh-my-god moment for me. But are you tired of it yet?

Are you tired of pictures of reef squid? I'm not. They are endlessly fascinating to watch. But I get to see them live. Seeing photos over and over is just not the same.

There are still many adventures here, many special moments to share that might be interesting. Lately I've been caught up in the everyday minutiae of my own life and even I'm not all that interested in reading about it.

Our Angel

2011-09-21T08:21:00.002-04:00

Somewhere in all the 9/11 and other hoopla, we kinda lost track that our granddaughter Angel started the first grade this month. There is a lot of her daddy in that beautiful face! Smart, angelic, with just a bit of devilment thrown in for spice.

Thanks, Steve, for sending us the pictures of Angel going off to school.

Hurricane Katia

2011-09-12T05:42:00.000-04:00

Fortunately, Hurricane Katia took a pretty hard right turn and passed us by. In her wake she left some great surfing, especially for this early in the season. I managed to catch a great morning session at Middles Beach. (Since then I've managed to be in the wrong place every time.)

Pro surfer Jamie O'Brien, normally a big-wave surfer from Hawaii, was catching huge air on the Middles waves. Local surfers were catching stand-up barrels. You can see all the best from this session on our web site, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com or a condensed set on Flickr.

I've heard Wilderness has been good the last two days so I'm going to head there to see if there's any early morning action.

9/11

2011-09-11T05:59:00.000-04:00

Long before 9/11 became synonymous with horror and tragedy it was a date of celebration. The love of my life was born on this date.

She is my world. Her example, every day, makes me want to be a better person. Her joy and sometimes-silliness inspires me to laugh. Her humanity and love of others inspires me to care even more. Her love of family brings us and keeps us closer together. Being with her, sharing our lives together, has made me everything that I am.

So, while the rest of the country - and maybe the world - is remembering the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I am celebrating, quietly, without her, because she is still with her family in Ohio. But celebrating none-the-less.

old friends

2011-09-08T17:02:00.002-04:00

The trip back to the States was of course about Elaine, her family, and celebrating her father's life. There was one happy personal sidebar for me though: we got to have lunch with two friends from my college days who live in northern Ohio. Given what our lives were like back then, it's a wonder we remembered each other. Once started, the memories just flowed. I had some great time with these guys.

Dan, Keith - I can't tell how great it was to see you guys. There's a whole long list of people I wish could have made our little mini-reunion (Ali, are you listening?).

Anyway, let's don't wait 35 years to meet again. Or if we do, let's hope we're all still here for it. And remember it!

Love you guys!

Of fathers

2011-09-02T15:54:00.003-04:00

Elaine's father, Edwin "Ted" Kumler, died Friday. August 26. He suffered health issues for last two years or so. He just started with Hospice care when he passed away in his sleep.

Last September, part of our trip north for the kite festival in Milwaukee included time in Ohio spent with Ted. It was a good visit. Although we didn't know for sure it would be the last time we saw him, we knew it was a good possibility.

Ted was a big man, a dominating presence in his family. At various times he had a falling our with each of his four children. But Elaine's sister Amy and her family were close by and spent a lot of time with him. Elaine went north for a time to be with him and to give Amy a break from the constant care he required. Their brother Phil traveled back several times from his home in Oregon. As he put it, "X-number of dollars for plane fare, Y-number of hours traveling, reconnecting with my father - priceless!"

Rest in Peace, Ted. You are missed already.

As we gathered for the Ted's memorial and celebration, I realized a new month turned over while I wasn't looking. It suddenly occurred to me It was September 1, my father's birthday. He always joked his birth date was easy to remember - it was the date World War II started. (Hitler launched his military invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, my father's fifteenth birthday.)

My father was killed in an automobile accident in California in 1982. My brother-in-law Phil's comment about reconnecting with his father really struck home. I've always felt there was so much unfinished business between me and my father, so much that needed to be said and wasn't. And now there is no chance of it, at least not in this world. I am haunted, not so much by his ghost as by the knowledge of that unfinished business. Maybe that is his ghost.

Happy 87th birthday, Dad. I miss you.

Huracan Irene

2011-08-23T05:17:00.000-04:00

(Did you know our word "hurricane" comes from a Taino word, "huracan?")

We have weathered our first hurricane. Irene passed over us Sunday night and Monday morning. packing 75 mile an hour winds. Irene slammed into the east end of the island as a tropical storm but strengthened into a Cat 1 hurricane as she passed over the island.

We spent most of Sunday moving things, lashing stuff down so it wouldn't blow. Our efforts paid off because I can't see where anything blew except for some palm fronds from an 80-foot tall tree. The new bar came through it famously - no leaks, no damage. I'm sure glad we put the hurricane cables on the roof though.

For reasons we can't explain - but are forever grateful for - we did not lose electricity or water. Between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people - 25% of the island population - did lose electric power and water. Many still don't have it back as of today, Tuesday.

My biggest worry was rain and flooding. At one point they were predicting 10-20 inches of rain. Fortunately we didn't get anywhere near that much. In fact, we've gotten a lot more rain since Irene passed than we did as she went over, again unlike the eastern third of the island which got hammered.

We were incredibly fortunate. Irene veered north and skirted the Dominican Republic and quickly grew to a Cat 2 out over the open water. Predictions now are that she will be a Cat 3 going over the Bahamas and maybe Cat 4 by the time she slams into the U.S. East Coast. We hope our East Coast friend stay safe.

We're glad our first encounter with a hurricane wasn't any worse than this. With (lots of) luck we won't have another close encounter for a long time.

Vietnam Memorial

2011-08-12T10:17:00.005-04:00

When we went to Washington, D.C., for the Manchester United-Barcelona match, we spent part of Saturday touring some of the memorials around the Mall. I finally got to see the Vietnam Memorial, to me the most moving, the most touching of the war memorials.

For one thing, this was "our" war. In many ways it defined my generation. It was the defining action of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, a presidency that should have been remembered for desegregation and efforts to combat poverty. The ignominious end of the war should have been the defining moment for the Nixon presidency but his later lunacy upstaged even that.

Partly the Vietnam memorial is the most moving, the most intense because it is the most personal. You cannot escape it. You cannot look away. All those names. Somewhere on that wally there is the name of someone you knew. A friend. A relative. A classmate. Those are real people. Other memorials with their statues, no matter how realistic the statues, are abstractions, representations. There is nothing abstract about the Vietnam memorial. These are the names of real sons and daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters whose deaths left a hole in real families. The Wall never lets us forget that.

And The Wall never lets us escape our own responsibility, our own culpability, for the war. Our own faces reflected amongst the names of the dead in the polished marble surface puts us in the middle of the tragedy. Regardless of which side you were on - against it or for it - we were all part of the horror. We are all responsible for those names on the wall. There is no "us" and "them." There is only us.

Somehow we haven't seemed to learn that lesson. The horror continues only now it's in the desert instead of the jungle. And we are all still responsible.

The new Ola Lola's is open!

2011-08-06T08:05:00.003-04:00

We celebrated three weeks of construction and remodeling last night when the "new" Ola Lola's opened. "Mas techo, mas seco" (more roof, more dry). Fortunately we didn't have to test the new roof. It was a beautiful evening. Both new decks got rave reviews from everyone but the locals on the new east deck (left in the picture above) are already talking expansion. The new bigger space inside the bar is amazing. Two of us worked in and out of there all night and didn't run into each other once. The new windows worked brilliantly - lots more window space so even when it was crowded people weren't standing shoulder to shoulder four deep trying to get a beer. The angle window in the front has morphed from being THE window to essentially a service window. It worked really really well.

I have to say, working the new space , besides all the extra room, the thing I like best is the new SINK! We now have a real honest-to-god three-compartment bar sink. It makes taking care of glassware so much easier.

We want a huge shout-out to the crew that made this happen:

Start with David Pfaff, golf course designer extraordinaire. It was his understanding and rendering of the vision of Ola Lola's that got all this started;

Elizabeth Prysgoda-Montgomery - She took David's ideas and put them on paper. She guided and focused our thinking and kept us on track as we designed Ola Lola's;

The Comacho brothers, Chino, Andre, Luis, Pedro, and Edwin - They took the design and made it the reality that is standing today. Everyone is amazed at how quickly the construction was completed. "This just doesn't happen in Puerto Rico" is a consistent comment. I amend that to "anywhere!" I've never seen a construction project go this smoothly and on time anywhere.

Our own crew, Rosa, Pichi, Dotti - Rosa knew of Comacho brothers and brought us together. We literally could not do this without them.

The ladies of TAFY Arts: Pat, Patti, Kelda, Rosie, Nan - Their creativity is one of the brightest shiniest parts of the new Ola Lola's. But that's a story for another day.

TS Emily

2011-08-04T09:32:00.002-04:00

Tropical Storm Emily passed about 150 miles or so south of la isla yesterday. Fortunately all we got was a little rain. And I really do mean a little. I didn't even have to pump out the yard or the corral. It's muddy but there is no standing water. Here's hoping she doesn't hit Haiti too hard. They just don't need anymore damage. The current track predictions take the storm mostly west of Haiti, across eastern Cuba and on to the Bahamas. That said, there is still quite a lot of rain in the system and we will be under the cloud cover extending out from the center at least through most of today.

Meanwhile work continues on the "new" Ola Lola's as we get ready for our "soft" reopening on Friday. There will be lots of details and little thing done to make it work for quite a while. For now, we are really happy with it!

Dude, where's my bar?

2011-08-03T05:36:00.001-04:00

Over the past three weeks great changes have been wrought at Ola Lola's. We began making some long-needed updates.

We added a new deck next to the barport and a new deck east of the bar. We put a new roof over everything. Then we tore down the existing Ola Lola's structure and roof and built a new bar structure. There's lots of finish work to do but we will be open this weekend.

Next week we're building new bathrooms.

I say "we" like we're doing any of the actual work. Not so much. We have four great local guys, brothers actually, doing the work for us. They are awesome carpenters. No one can believe how quickly they are working, how fast they are getting things done. They are among the best workers I've ever seen anywhere. And they seem to enjoy their work; they are having fun. That makes the whole project more fun for us.

It seems like Ola Lola's is getting bigger but only a little bit. Our goal wasn't to expand, to get more seats, but to get more seats under roof so it's more comfortable when it rains. We also needed to widen the bar. The odd wedge shape made it very difficult to work in, especially for two people. There was very little storage space. Now the bar is wider with more windows and more space for barstools. It will be interesting to see how we and our guests use the space. (One thing I learned as a theater set designer is people never use a space exactly as you envisioned they will.)

The new space is beautiful, amazing, but still has all of the laid-back atmosphere and guerrilla architecture of the original. We can't wait to get in it and start welcoming guests.

Manchester United vs. Barcelona

2011-08-02T11:14:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know I promised news days ago but things got a little out of hand. And then I left for Washington, D.C. to see Manchester United play FC Barcelona in a pre-season friendly. It was a rematch (of sorts) of last year's Champions' League final. This time ManU won.

I went for the weekend with two great friends and great soccer fans and we had a blast! It wasn't the best soccer match (nobody really expected a preseason match would be) but the atmosphere in the stadium was incredible. Nearly 82,000 people in FedEx Stadium, the largest crowd ever to see a soccer match in the U.S.

We had a chance to visit some of the monuments on the National Mall but our sightseeing was cut short by the heat. Fortunately for us it cooled down - from 110 degrees on Friday to only 95 on Saturday.

It was a rush trip - we left Friday and came back Sunday - but we had a fabulous time. Most likely the only time I will ever get to see either of those teams play live.

More news tomorrow.

2011-07-25T07:27:00.003-04:00

So where we been this time?

Ah, that is a question, a question for tomorrow.

Today is about KAP. I missed World Wide KAP Week in May. I missed KAPping a beach on the 4th of July. I was determined to KAP Jobos beach this weekend.

Today (July 25) is Constitution Day here in PR. (We don't have an Independence Day; this is the next best thing.) Constitution Day weekend is the last big summer party weekend before school starts in August. Beaches are packed, roads are jammed. (We celebrate Labor Day as a holiday but it's not as big a deal here as it is in the States.)

This is Playa Jobos at about 1:30 in the afternoon. It's not as crazy as on the 4th of July but still pretty packed. It was crazy enough that by the time I left about 2:00 the police closed the road through Jobos and routed all the traffic up the hill and over the top through Isabela pueblo.

This was my first KAP session in four months and it was wild and crazy. Lots of curious people around, the kite and KAP rig swinging wildly in the 20+ knot gusty winds. It was the maiden flight for my "new" KAP camera, a Canon A3300 I got to replace the A640 camera that was stolen. All things considered it acquitted itself very well. Looking forward to many more KAP sessions with it.

Night snorkel

2011-07-06T07:44:00.006-04:00

A tiny sliver of moon hung in the southwest sky as we walked down the beach. The last of the setting sun was hidden behind a low cloud bank on the horizon. Still, there was still plenty of light to see our way.

We slipped into the surprisingly cool ocean, put on masks, snorkels and fins and headed across the sand-bottom pool to the reef. In the not-quite-dark we didn't turn on our dive lights, preferring to see at what might be there in the dusk, things that the sudden bright light might scare away.

The reef, so familiar in the daylight, is a completely different world at night. Different creatures are out and familiar creatures behave differently. Sea urchins move across the reef rather than anchoring like barnacles in crevices in the coral. Ocean surgeonfish and blue tang, disturbed from their sleep, dart away from the light, faster than we ever see them swim in the daylight.

The reef itself looks different, brought in to sharp relief of light and shadow by the small, highly directional dive lights. Familiar coral formations look radically different and totally unfamiliar. Because our visibility is limited to the range of our dive lights, we tend to look at the underwater world in micro rather than macro. We shine our lights into cracks and holes and crevices in the reef that we might not even notice in daylight. Brittle starfishes and octopuses are more visible in their holes at night because colors show differently, brighter, under the artificial light of the dive lights.

We don't get to night snorkel often but we love it when we do. The July full moon is on the 15th (Saturday when Ola Lola's is open) so it will be nearly full on the 14th (Thursday) and the 18th (Tuesday). Hopefully the skies will be clear and we can get in the water then.

Fourth of July

2011-07-05T05:23:00.001-04:00

This was our fifth Fourth in Puerto Rico. In past years I've gone out on the holiday to KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) the crowds on a near-by beach. I didn't make it this year.

Saturday and Sunday the weather was crappy - cloudy, gusty winds, and small crowds on the beaches. That's good for the beaches but not for KAPping. Monday, the Fourth, was a beautiful day but after running some errands, I chose to snorkel into Blue Hole on a rumor a manatee might be there. Then we hung out on the beach with with Kai, Amy and Miguel. (Kennedy is away visiting her other grandparents in Michigan.) Then of course Ola Lola's was open in the afternoon and evening.

I missed KAPping but we had a great day.

Happy birthday, Kennedy

2011-07-03T05:59:00.000-04:00

Our little beach girl is FOUR! Happy birthday, Boo!

Another yola on the beach

2011-06-28T08:06:00.001-04:00

We woke up Sunday morning to the racket of a helicopter hovering just outside our window. Actually it was over the field next to us but it sounded like it was right outside our window. Obviously a police helicopter, it hovered and circled the field and flew up and down the beach for more than an hour searching for something. Or someone.

A yola (a small boat) had landed on our beach during the night and the police and Border Patrol were looking for Dominican refugees. By the time I walked down to the beach any refugees were long gone. Only a few Border Patrol agents and the helicopter remained.

The boat apparently came ashore at high tide because there it sat, high and dry on the rocks. Unlike many of these boats, this one was in good shape. No holes in the hull meant it came over rather than through the reef.

This was a pretty small boat compared to some of the others we've seen. We haven't heard any numbers of people that might have been on board but it couldn't have been too many. Judging by the amount of gasoline left in plastic cans on the boat it must have been a pretty fast crossing.

There also wasn't the usual debris - clothes, water containers, toothbrushes, shoes, children's toys, backpacks - we saw when other boats landed. That said, a friend who owns property by the cliff said he found clothes left behind as the boat people ran up the hill away from the beach.

Monday evening the tide came in and lifted to boat free of the rocks. At Ola Lola's we heard the boat was drifting west with the wind and current past VillaTropical. We don't know if a fisherman managed to snag it and haul it away or if it drifted out to sea past Villa Montaña. Whatever happened to it, by Monday morning it was gone.

No yola to burn on the beach. No yola left to break up on the beach and rocks and reef. No pieces of fiberglass stuck in the reef. The yola and all the people it vanished.

It was like yola had never been there at all.

San Juan Roadtrip

2011-06-24T05:19:00.000-04:00

We recently had to go to San Juan to take some paperwork so Elaine can get her Speech-Language Pathologist's license her in PR. She has two college degrees and has taught at the university level. She received her Masters degree with honors. She has (and has given the licensing people) copies of her high school, undergrad, and graduate transcripts.

The junta, the group that oversees licensing, denied her application for a provisional license (until she takes the test in October) because she did not show and provide a copy of her high school diploma! Are you kidding me?!?!?! Apparently they weren't. So Elaine's sister dug her hs diploma out of a box in her basement in Cleveland and sent it to us. All is well now - we think. The junta meets on the 30th and we should know the first week of July.

Her high school diploma? Are you kidding me?

There was some fun in the trip though.

Taking a tip from the Japanese, where horizontal space is at a premium, this carfair along Carr. 18 in San Juan went vertical to display cars.

On the way home we saw not one but two Ford F150 pickups with three horses in back. I hate to say "only in Puerto Rico" but I've never seen horses transported in the beds of pickups. I have heard it's not all that uncommon in West Texas. People, especially those from the States, kinda freak out about horses in pickup trucks but for the most part, the horses seem okay with it. And We're fine with it. As long as the horses aren't driving.

Noche de San Juan

2011-06-24T05:00:00.001-04:00

One of the biggest party nights of the year is the unofficial holiday Noche de San Juan (Night of St. John). Originally the holiday was to celebrate St. John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. The tradition is that if you go to the ocean and throw yourself backwards into the water three times, you will have good luck in the coming year.

We celebrated early. Elaine took a sunset ride on Chocolate and then we had dinner with friends on the deck at Villa Tropical.

We headed home early because in the current reality this is a night for camping (illegally) and all-night partying on the beaches. Beaches such as Jobos are as busy overnight as they are during the day. That's all well and good. The sad part is most of these beaches have few or no sanitary facilities and too many people simply disrespect the beauty of la isla.

And the next morning...

We just hate to see our beautiful beaches like this so we tend to avoid these big summer party weekends and celebrate quietly our own way.

Scuba diving at Shacks

2011-06-19T05:16:00.000-04:00

Shacks Beach - the beach right in front of Villa Tropical and just down from us - is one of the best dive sites on this side of the island. It's a shore dive which means we just walk in to the ocean, swim out a little way across Blue Hole, and then drop into a beautiful reef.

The "outside reef" - outside Blue Hole - is a "finger-and-groove" reef. The reef forms canyons that we swim through. It reminds me of films of fly-bys through canyons in the American Southwest: swimming along 30'-40' underwater with these walls of coral soaring above us.

The entire reef is like Swiss cheese, riddled with holes and ledges, some you can swim through, some you can swim under. There are three tunnels through the outer reef that we use to back into Blue Hole. In fact there are tours of the tunnels and swim-throughs in and around Blue Hole.

A KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) shot of the reef at Shacks Beach. Blue Hole is at the top left. The inner shallow reef takes up most of the photo. The deeper outer reef is to the right.

Lately, Darryl has been taking a new route out of Blue Hole back to the inner reef. The "old" route was more direct but came through a kinda tight space. The new route, part of which is pictured above, is up and over and through several different passages before coming out on top of the inner reef.

I love diving out there. We wait all winter for the calmer flatter waters of summer so we can dive Shacks. During the winter - surf season - Shacks is usually to rough to dive. That's when we dive "around the corner" on the west side at Natural and Crashboat.

But now it's summer and time to dive Shacks!

It's my birthday - it's my birthday

2011-06-18T08:14:00.002-04:00

Well, it was my birthday Thursday. What a great day! I've had some wonderful birthday celebrations over the years, but this absolutely one of the best whole birthday days I've ever had.

We - Elaine, Darryl and I - started the day with a beautiful, relaxed dive at Shacks - flat seas, no surge, very little current. One odd thing on this dive: what current there was was running "backwards," from west to east, instead of the usual east to west. Not a big deal for us diving but noteworthy for its strangeness.

Elaine and I had brunch at a new little place up on Carr. 110 call "My Sweet Place." They specialize in waffles, pancakes and cakes, but they don't open until 11:00 am. That struck us as a little odd but it was perfect timing for us. And I have to say, they served the best cup of coffee I've had in Puerto Rico. The beans are from a small coffee plantation called Hacienda San Pedro. We bought a can of beans to try at home.

At sunset we went down the road to the Eclipse restaurant at Villa Montaña for an oceanside dinner at the invitation of the owner. They set up a table for us right on the beach. We've always said that Eclipse had the best setting and ambiance of any restaurant around. And our dinner - tuna tar-tar and tempura shrimp for starters, then grilled kangaroo medium rare and fresh bass, topped off with key lime pie and chocolate mousse for desert - was unbelievable. We'd never tasted kangaroo before. It's a mild red meat, similar to but markedly different from beef. The service, which at times over the years has been suspect at Eclipse, we're very please to say was excellent. Thank you, Alain, Yosset, Maria, Giovanni, and of course Chef Jeremy for a wonderful wonderful birthday dinner.
I got to talk to, or at least had birthday messages from all of the kids at sometime during the day. Just as we sat down to dinner Amy and Miguel and Kennedy (who are visiting family on the mainland) called and sang "Happy Birthday." Then Kennedy got on by herself and sang the Spanish version of "happy birthday." I cannot begin to tell you how touching that was.

For the record, I am not 29 or 25 or celebrating "the 35th anniversary of my 25th birthday." I just turned 60 and I'm damned proud of it! There are those (me included sometimes) that never thought I'd still be here. But I am and I'm glad and I'm lovin' my life!

Thanks to everyone for all the amazing birthday wishes! It was a great start to my 61st year.

Squid sex

2011-06-12T08:21:00.002-04:00

The reef squid are always among our favorite sea creatures. Their constantly changing iridescent colors, their graceful dance-like movements in the water, their curiosity and their beauty are endlessly fascinating.

On Saturday we got to watch part of their mating display while snorkeling at Shacks Beach. First, two males separated themselves from the shoal (pod) and fought each other in a spiral display of dominance. The the victorious male went to court a female (the photo above). She was having none of it, indicated by her white translucent color. The whole encounter was amazing!

You can see more of the squids' mating behavior in this video:

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/29078-the-ultimate-guide-octopus-reef-squid-courtship-video.htm

By the way, after the first video finishes, just wait and let the series continue to play. It's a fascinating series about squid and octopuses.

Huge thanks to our good friend Tracy Abney for turning us on to this series of videos.

Comings and goings, to-ings and fro-ings

2011-06-06T05:29:00.000-04:00

Sunday night we said adios to another great friend, Colin Dow. Colin has been here for three months (can it really be that long already?). He came from Montana(!) to work at Villa Montaña. Talk about a change! A former NFL player, Colin fully embraced the island life while he was here. Among other things he became a certified SCUBA diver. Not quite sure where he's going to dive in Montana. Guess he'll just have to come back and dive with us.

Colin, thank you! It has been a too-short pleasure. Come back soon 'cause we're gonna miss ya.

Happy birthday, Rosa! (redux)

2011-06-05T09:17:00.002-04:00

Last night we had a surprise extra birthday celebration for a friend and co-worker, Rosa. The celebration last week at OneTenThai was great but something was missing - one of Elane's special birthday songs!!!

Last night Rosa got the full Ola Lola's birthday treatment, complete with an Elaine song - in Spanish! Too much fun!

Happy birthday another time, Rosa!

Mucha lluvia! (lots of rain!)

2011-06-05T08:56:00.002-04:00

So far, it has rained every day in June. It rained just about every day in May. It's pretty common have a nice morning and then have a cloudy afternoon, sometimes with rain, sometimes without. But this! It seems like the sun hasn't been out for more than a few minutes for weeks! This is a really really strange weather pattern.

We tried to have a Thursday adventure. We started out for Rincon with our friends Pat and Bill. The plan was to check out some art shops and studios in Rincon and then drive down to Boqueron for the evening, watch the sunset, drink some beer, and check out someplace different.

It started raining just as we drove into Rincon. Okay. Don't really want to walk around in the rain looking for art studios. So we headed out of Rincon for the highway south toward Mayaguez and Boqueron beyond. By the time we got to the highway, PR 2, it was raining so hard we could hardly see. Mission abandoned, our new adventure was just to get back to Isabela safely. It rained all the way home. Elaine and I both kept thinking "Oh, what a mess it's going to be when we get back!"

Fortunately, as frequently happens, it rained harder south of us (Aguadilla, Aguada, Rincon, Mayaquez) than it did here. Not that we didn't get a lot of rain. We did. But we didn't flood - except for the corral which as been wet for a month.

There has been no diving: the ocean is a mess from all the muddy water pouring down the rivers from the mountains. Elaine hasn't done much riding: the trails she usually rides, the ones that aren't totally flooded, are muddy and slippery and mosquito-infested.

This pattern is supposed to break by the middle of the week. As long as it's not replaced by a hurricane, I can't wait!

Adios, Leigh!

2011-05-29T09:21:00.003-04:00

There is a dark downside to the friendliness and the sense of community we develop here: It's hard when someone you care for and consider part of "the family" leaves.

Our magical little corner of the island is, by it's nature, has a large transient population. Tourists come for a week or two; surfers come for a weekend or for the winter; people come from the States on two-week or two-year work assignments; Coast Guard postings change every couple of years. In the time they are here, we get close to many of these people. They become regulars at Ola Lola's. They become part of our extended family.

And then they leave. Everyone who leaves us leaves a little tiny (or sometimes HUGE) hole in the fabric that is our lives.

Last night we said good-by to Leigh. Leigh has been working here for about three months. She and her co-workers at ATI have set up a service that flies once-a-week nonstop flights from "our" airport in Aguadilla to Madrid, Spain. (Next week they are going to start flights to Barcelona as well.)

We surprised her with a full Ola Lola send-off complete with cake and one of Elaine's famous songs, customized just for her. I'm not sure Leigh realized until then just how much a part of the Ola Lola family she had become.

Although she's been many places in the world, Leigh had never tried SCUBA diving. She had her first discover dive with our friend Darryl. The dive didn't start out well when Leigh had a panic attack. As he has done so many times with so many first-time divers, Darryl worked her through it and she was hooked. Just this week she finished her certification; she's now a diver!

When Leigh first got here, she didn't quite "get" Ola Lola's. Now she does. Welcome to the family, Leigh! Come back and visit soon. At least put a little patch on that hole in the fabric.

Adios, Tim

2011-05-28T04:30:00.000-04:00

Last week we said good-by to a good friend. Tim Dutton left the island for a new gig in the States. We wish him the best of luck with his new life up north. We'll see Tim back again though - he still has family here on the island.

Happy birthday, Rosa!

2011-05-27T07:34:00.001-04:00

Last night we celebrated our friend and Ola Lola's co-worker Rosa's birthday. Thanks to everyone who turned out at 110 Thai to help us celebrate.

Happy birthday, Rosa!

New camera's maiden dive

2011-05-23T08:07:00.005-04:00

My self-imposed sort of exile from the computer continues but I didn't intend my absence from here to be this long.

The dive camera issue is totally resolved. The new camera and new housing arrived and are together. This photo of our friend and dive buddy Robin is from the rig's second dive. The first dive was in such terribly murky water - visibility about four feet - that I didn't bother even trying to take pictures. I'm still adjusting to the new rig but so far I like it. Mostly, I'm glad the whole episode is now closed and behind us.

The good news is there should be lots more dive pictures in the near future!

Adventure Tuesday

2011-05-12T09:29:00.000-04:00

Mail boxes along the side of the road near Dorado.

This week's Adventure Tuesday was on Wednesday, a roadtrip to San Juan. It was not all fun and games: We had to deliver some documents to a government office for Elaine's SLP license here and to - ARRRRGH! - go to Plaza Las Americas, the biggest mall in the Caribbean. We had a specific goal for Plaza Las Americas but of course got sidetracked and took longer than we'd planned.

From there we drove along the coast to Dorado. We stopped to check out the Agrotourism Park near Dorado. Elaine went to a rodeo in this park last weekend. She wanted me to see it and to check it out as a possible site for a kite festival, possibly even the American Kitefliers Association's National Convention and Grand Nationals competition. So we flew our kites there for a little while.

It is a very cool site and would work great for a kite festival. Hmmm....

We checked out a couple of beaches along the way and were reminded (once again, as if we needed to be reminded) of how lucky we are on this side of the island. There were a few open beaches along the roadway but nothing like our beaches. There is a lot of money in Dorado (that's where the Donald's golf course, home of the Puerto Rico Open, is located). There may be some very nice beaches in Dorado, but mostly they are sealed off from the public behind heavily secured gated housing communities. There is a pretty nice balenario (public swimming beach) in Dorado; we stopped there for a beer.

The nicest beach we saw on this trip was the balenario at Cerro Gordo a little west of Dorado. It was getting late by the time we got Cerro Gordo and we didn't have much time to spend there. We will go back again, I'm sure.

The balenarios are essentially public beach parks. You can walk in for free but there fees to park inside. The ones we've visited have (mostly) pretty nice facilities. The one in Dorado had a bar and pool tables. Facilities, such as restrooms and trash pick up, are one of the advantages of these beaches. But unlike our beaches, these balenarios are behind fences and gates. They are nice but not open.

From the cliff at Dunas, past Sardinera and Villa Pesquera, Shore Island, Middles, Golandrina, Jobos, Bajura, Shacks, and Martinique to the rocks at Survival, we have more than eight miles of open and accessible beaches. Then there is Surfers, Wishing Well, Natural, Crashboat and the beaches along downtown Aguadilla. And those are just the ones nearby.

We are so lucky here on our side of the island!

Stolen camera update

2011-05-09T07:28:00.000-04:00

The stolen camera saga is nearly complete.

On Friday, we met in the District Attorney's office and the perp - or rather the perp's father - paid the replacement cost of the camera and housing. By making restitution he avoided a trial and probable jail time.

So with cash in hand, I have ordered the new camera and new housing. Hopefully, by the time it all gets here, the ocean will clean up and there will be some great new dive photos.

For now this chapter is closed.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2011-05-08T07:15:00.000-04:00

To everyone who is a mother, soon will be a mother or has a mother, Happy Mother's Day from all of us at Ola Lola's. We hope you have a wonderful day!

We have a special Mother's Day wish for our daughter Amy, mother of two of our beautiful grandchildren. (It's still a little weird wishing our own daughter Happy Mother's Day and meaning it!) And from both of us to our mothers - we miss you, every minute, every day.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

KAP update

2011-05-04T08:14:00.000-04:00

If you've been checking back here looking for new KAP photos, you've been pretty disappointed. So have I. Thus far, for me at least, WWKW has been a total bust.

Until today, every day this week has been grey and overcast with either strong gusty winds or no wind at all. It has either rained hard or at least spit rain just about every day as well.

To add to the weather woes, my primary KAP camera was also my dive camera, the one that was stolen. My older "back up" camera is acting up.

All in all the one day I did get out to KAP I came back with not one single usable shot.

Whine whine whine! Ya want some cheese with that whine?

Today looks like a much better day. I think I've figured out work-arounds for the camera's issues so I can use it until the new camera gets here later this week.

In the mean time, you can see some great KAP photos from KAPpers around the world on the WWKW group on Flickr or on the main Flickr KAP group. They just aren't my photos - yet.

World Wide KAP Week starts

2011-04-29T06:59:00.000-04:00

NOW!

The goal of WWKW (World Wide KAP Week) is:

"Everyone gets out wherever they are, as much as they can, during WWKW, and does KAP or something related to KAP (public speaking, gallery showing of KAP photos, etc.) Pictures are posted to the WWKW Flickr group for folks to share. If we're doing a book again this year, unmodified photos are submitted to the person coordinating the book along with captions and a block of text describing yourself, your experience during WWKW, etc. " (Credits: Tom Benedict).

Okay, that's what WWKW is but what is KAP?

KAP is the acronym for Kite Aerial Photography. Basically it's aerial photography done with a camera suspended from a kite line. The rigs for holding and triggering the camera range from a simple pendulum with a single-use camera and a rubber band to trigger the shutter to complex multichannel radio-controlled rigs with gyroscopes to steady the camera and video downlinks so the photographer can actually see what the camera above sees. My rig falls somewhere in between.

I built my first KAP rig just before I moved to Puerto Rico but didn't actually use it until I got here. I certainly didn't invent KAP. That honor is usually given to Arthur Batut, a Frenchman who took the first know KAP photos in the late 1880s in Labruguiere, France. Right now, there are some 1,872 members of the Flickr KAP group world-wide. The Flickr group is a great showcase of the best KAP work.

Few people know that one of the most famous KAP photos is in fact a KAP photo. In the days after the 1906 earthquake that leveled San Francisco, a photographer named George Lawrence made this photo of the devastated city:

It was not taken from an airplane or a hot air balloon. Rather, Mr. Lawrence "took this remarkable kite aerial photograph in 1906 as San Francisco lay devastated by the '06 earthquake. Less than 20 years after Batut's first efforts Lawrence used a train of up to nine large Conyne kites to loft a moving-slit panoramic camera. The camera weighed 49 pounds and was lifted to a height of approximately 2,000 feet anchored by a wire tether. The shutter was released via an electric wire to produce a negative measuring 18" x 48". (credit: Chris Benton, Kite Aerial Photography)

My goal for WWKW is to KAP a different, new location each day. My plan is to post the best photo each day here, on the blog, and the best of the series on Flickr. Stay tuned. And check out the two Flickr pages to see what's new in the world of KAP.

Camera update

2011-04-28T08:52:00.000-04:00

The PR police found my diver camera! Or at least they found out what happened to it. The person who stole it sold in on Clasificados Online (which is just what it sounds like, an online classified ads website). He/she sold it for $60!!!!!!!

Since the police have the "perp," he/she has until Friday to pay me $800 to replace the camera and UW housing. If he/she pays, the case is closed and the thief goes free. If not, it becomes a criminal case and goes to trial. If it goes to trial, we probably get nothing in restitution. As much as I'd like to see the bastard go to jail, it probably wouldn't happen anyway. As one cop told me, the system doesn't always work the way we want it to, but this is the way the system works.

At least I won't have to pay to replace the camera/housing.

2011-04-20T06:20:00.000-04:00

I've taken a mostly voluntary hiatus from the computer. Mostly voluntary. Circumstances have also conspired to keep me away as well. We've been BUSY!

It's been an eventful couple of weeks.

Elaine took a few well-deserved days away. That left the care and feeding of all critters to me, and of the Ola Lola's crowd to Rosa, Pichi, Miguel and me. We had quite a weekend last week but we came through it, amazingly well if you ask me. Thank you so much to our wonderful help. You guys are awesome! That said, we are all glad Elaine was back with us this weekend.

KTJ, Elaine's Thoroughbred, celebrated her fourth birthday. In horsedom, that means she is now a mare and no longer a filly.

Last Saturday, just as we were closing, someone stole my camera and underwater housing from a table in the kitchen. Don't know who or how, but we have our suspicions. Our little point-n-shoot camera that we used to take pictures around the bar was stolen from the bar earlier, probably by the same person.

I wonder if thieves ever think of the impact of their actions on their victims. They obviously must think they need "the thing," whatever it is, money a camera, whatever, more than their victim does. But do they ever think "gee, this person is going to have to replace this thing I'm stealing and that's going to cost them." Or "gee, this thing might be important to somebody." Probably not.

The actual cost to us and our friends when two cars were broken into and another car stolen was over $8,000. The punk that did it paid "restitution" of $1,100. It will cost nearly $1,000 to replace my cameras. I could have used that $1,000 to upgrade to a new camera to shoot suf photos. Now I'll just be replacing what I already have.

These actions can have an impact far beyond just the victims. When I posted on Facebook about the camera theft and later about a dive without the camera, I got these comments back:

"Since we don't get to see your pictures, in a way, he stole from us too. I enjoyed seeing your pictures."

"i want to "like" this statement - but I don't like whoever stole your camera, and I don't like that I can't see the pictures as well."

" I agree as well. I LOVE seeing the pics of the time you spend exploring underwater! It is a loss to everyone that viewed them."

"I was imagining what you saw as you described it, but it's not the same as seeing it!"

"I agree too... I enjoy your underwater pictures a lot, since I snorkle, but I don't dive, that was my way of living the under water and showing my friends... in fact I even showed the pics to one of my students that wants to be a marine biologist."

I will get another camera and I will take pictures underwater again. It's just too much a part of who and what I am. Still, mean people suck.

Meet Oz

2011-04-03T07:30:00.000-04:00

This is Oz, our Buddhist Temple Lion dog. Oz adopted us by plopping down in the yard some time in November and he's been hanging out ever since. Our relationship with Oz started slowly. First we tried to shoo him away. Then, secretly at first and then openly, Elaine began to feed him as did our friend Mary and a few other dog-loving people who come by.

We think someone dumped him on the side of the road here, but he seems to have made a home for himself. Mostly he lays around in front of the bar. For a while, when we're open, he would hang out on the edges. If it got too busy for his comfort zone, he made himself a little den around on the side and he'd go there.

He's really sweet, especially for a chow. Chow's aren't known for their kind gentle dispositions. We think he was probably abused as a puppy because for a long time he wouldn't let anyone approach him or touch him. He got comfortable enough with us to take food from our hands but if we made any move to pet him, he moved away. The good news is he is very timid but not passive-aggressive. He didn't move away and growl; he just moved away.

Elaine, with the help of a couple of friends, finally caught him him and put him on a rope so we could get him to the vet. Good thing! In addition to needing shots and grooming, we found out he has heartworm. The good news is it's still in the early stages and hasn't yet damaged any organs. So he's getting treated for that. As most satos (street dogs) do, he has other parasites that he's being treated for. And, after an initial 3-day stay at the vet, he had to return 2 days later for another 24 hours for some sort of infection that he's now getting antibiotics for. (Once again proving that adopting an animal is NOT - contrary to many preconceived notions - an inexpensive way to acquire a pet.)

He's become very comfortable with us. He let's us approach and sometimes even comes to us. He'll let us pet him and Elaine now brushes him every day. He even stood quietly while Elaine gave him a bath! He stays on the rope, mostly so we know we can catch him. He's still on medications and next week goes back to the vet for another treatment for heartworm and to get neutered. When we're open we move him around back as a precaution. He's still pretty docile but as he feels better there is always the possibility he'll start acting more like a chow.

Ziplining redux

2011-03-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

Our Tuesday Adventure was a return (for me at least) to Batey Ziplining up in the center of the island. Our friend Kelda's brother was visiting and she wanted to take him and friends Cassie and Alfredo on the tour. This time Elaine went along. I think she liked it.

As always, getting there was part of the adventure. Those of you who have been to Puerto Rico know the roads are not always well marked. Okay, we got a little lost. Because of the way the roads twist and turn up in the middle of the island, there are three intersections of routes 129 and 111. The directions said to turn at the second intersection but the one you want is really the third intersection. We took the second. It didn't go where we wanted to go. You'd think that eventually you'd wind up in the same place anyway but apparently not. For a few minutes it was like being in the Twilight Zone.

And then there are the roads back to the zipline. They are an adventure all by themselves. But we made it and had a great time. Thanks for sharing it with us.

The horses

2011-03-29T07:59:00.000-04:00

Elaine back from a ride on KTJ...

and Chocolate horsing around.

Old friends, new friends

2011-03-28T07:33:00.000-04:00

Our friend Susan (on the left in pink) came back for a short visit. She used to live at the other end of the beach road but she traded in sun and sand and warm for a cottage in the far northwest of Minnesota(!). To be fair Susan was originally from Minnesota and moving was a kind of going home for her. It was great to see her back on the island, even if only for a couple of days.

We also have a new friend in the 'hood, Maura. Maura is a flight attendant (and SCUBA diver and fledgling surfer) and just moved into Bajuras. Welcome to the party, Maura!

100th Dive

2011-03-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

Today did I did my 100th SCUBA dive! I led the dive and that completed my stuff for Advanced certification. How cool is that? SCUBA diving is something I've wanted to do since I was a kid watching Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges (father of actors Jeff and Beau Bridges) on TV. It took me a while but here I am, living on a tropical island and diving as often as possible. I LOVE IT!

Thanks to our great friends Darryl (my teacher and dive mentor), John D. (one of my idols), Patti and our new-ish friend and dive buddy Robin for sharing my 100th dive with me.

Waitng to catch a plane

2011-03-21T07:26:00.000-04:00

Spontaneous Combustion came back to Ola Lola's for a late jam session while they were waiting for their even-later flight out of Aguadilla. What a great way to spend some of your last few hours on the island- having a couple of beers and jammin' with friends. Thanks, guys. It was great fun. Hopefully, we'll see you back in the fall.

Happy 1st birthday, Kaiden!

2011-03-20T21:54:00.000-04:00

Saturday we helped celebrate our grandson Kaiden's first birthday at the local splash park. We all had a great time. Kai and big sister Kennedy love water and especially this splash park. The park itself is very cool - very kid and family friendly. Amy and Miguel take the kids there almost every week. I'm sure this isn't the last time we'll be there with them either.

Happy birthday, Kaiden!

Happy birthday, Steve

2011-03-19T08:03:00.000-04:00

Today is our son Steve's birthday. Happy birthday, Steve. We love you! Wish you were here to celebrate but we'll have one (or two) in your honor. I'd find a bottle of Jamison's somewhere! (BTW, he's the one with hair.)

We also missed the chance to say "Happy birthday" to our good good friend Darryl - although we had a great party for him on his birthday last Saturday at Ola Lola's. That's Darryl, in the middle singing with the band. Hey, Darryl - the whole "no photos, no video, no DNA , never happened" thing is now history. We have photographic proof of you singing with the band.

And one more party to acknowledge: On Thursday we went to a St Patrick's Day party at the Thai restaurant here in Puerto Rico. The band lives in Hopi Indian country in the Four Corners area of Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado and has a fiddle player from Bali. The hosts, Andy and Nasstasia, are of German/Scottish/Irish and Mexican descent. We LOVE multiculturalism!

Sincerest flattery

2011-03-15T08:19:00.000-04:00

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We received this photo in an email from some friends in Bethany Beach, Delaware. They said,

"...we decided last to start having "Ola Lola" parties under our home at Bethany. We try to replicate the same casualness and your inviting spirit.

Attached is a picture we took...I hope we are not violating any trademark's you have registered :)"

Thank you, Ted. We are flattered and honored. Hope your Ola Lola parties capture some of the Ola Lola vibe.

Nothing like a bout of the flu...

2011-03-14T07:41:00.000-04:00

I spent most of last week crashed out with a strain of the flu. We even closed Ola Lola's one night because of it. This a weird strain. It moved back and forth between my chest and my head. the worst part about it was the constant headache that nothing would ease. Imagine your worst hangover. Multiply by 5 to 10 (depending on how much ibuprophin you've had). Stretch out over 6 days. Welcome to my world.

But all is better now.

Sunset view from the deck at Llave del Mar.

We - Elaine, our friend Kelda and I - had a Tuesday adventure for dinner. Of course, so many restaurants around here are closed on Tuesday that Tuesday dinner is always an adventure. We went to Quebradillas and found a seafood restaurant right on the cliff overlooking the sunset and ocean. It wasn't the restaurant Elaine and Kelda planned, the one where they had dinner last Tuesday (while I was home nursing my non-hangover headache). That one was closed this week. But we found another one we enjoyed, Llave del Mar. The seafood was really fresh and delicious and the service was great. The only thing that was a bit strange were the three mounted hunting trophies - two stuffed deer heads and a bear head, not the sort of thing one thinks of at an oceanview restaurant on this island.

On Wednesday, Elaine and I had another adventure, this time off to San Juan. Not for fun or pleasure, but so Elaine could file all the paperwork needed to get her Speech-Language Pathologist's license her in PR. The first part of the adventure was finding the place. Elaine did a great job of navigating us there. We landed just a block short of where we needed to be. Most of the paperwork went quickly. The only hickup was finding an attorney (!) to notarize the documents. Normally, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an attorney's office but we walked five blocks before we found one. All in all, this was a very smooth encounter with a government agency. We got there, got our business done and got out with very little hassle, delay or waiting in line. Rebecca, the woman in the licensing office, was very helpful. And, we - that is, mostly Elaine - did the whole encounter in Spanish!

We had one more adventure on our San Juan trip. We were very close to Plaza Las Americas, the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean. We had to stop. Now I can (finally) say I've been to Plaza Las Americas. I can also say if I don't go back for another four years (or more) I will be just fine with it. It's actually very difficult to shop there. As our friend Tito said, your head just spins. There is so much stuff competing for your attention and so much sparkle and just so MUCH, it's hard to concentrate on anything. Even the bookstore, my favorite store in any mall, was overwhelming. Guess I'm just an out-island beach bum who can't take the big city.

And I'm okay with that.

Dunja and José

2011-03-12T09:22:00.000-04:00

We are very fortunate to have met so many wonderful people in our four short years here. In our world fill with great people, some stand out because in they touched our hearts and lives in a special unexpected way.

It is the nature of this area and our lives that many of these people are here for just a short time and then move on, either to return to their homes or on to some other adventure.

One such couple is Dunja and José. Originally from Switzerland, they came to our little corner of the world as part of an extended around-the-world vacation. José is a windsurfer and came to play in the tradewinds at Shacks Beach. Dunja LOVES and works with horses in Switzerland and in Spain. Wherever she goes in their travels, she finds horses and horse people. We are so lucky that on this trip, she found Elaine. They bonded in a very special way, caring for Chocolate and KTJ, riding together, and just spending time "talking horse." Dunja's leaving has left a totally unexpected hole in Elaine's life. (And BTW, José created the "no te vayas" ["don't go"] dip special on this week's menu.) We wish them well and safe, wonderful travels. And Elaine is counting the days until her horse buddy comes back in February, 2012.

An update from Dunja

2011-03-12T07:10:00.000-04:00

When Dunja and Jose left us in PR, they headed for Maui where they are staying in a friend's beachhouse. In the aftermath of the horribly devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Dunja sent us this first-hand account of the tsunami n Hawaii:

"We are fine on Maui, but yesterday it was kind of adventure. At 10 the siren started to haul and all the people living by the beach (we're living very very close) had to move upcountry, because the tsunami was expected to hit hawaii around 3 o'clock in the night. Not a lot of sleep and watching tv all night long in a friends house, we finally returned in the morning to our house to have a look what happened.

The tsunami took everything around our beachhouse away. Washingmachine, dryer, outside-shower, hotpot, tables everything floated away or was damaged. But we had a lot of luck that the house is still here. The sea level was arising 6 feet higher then hightide and our place was one of the worst on the whole island. So today we spent the whole day with cleaning and we carried all the rubish together.But finally no people, no animals are hurt, and everybody is happy. All people here helped and I cooked a big pot of spaghetti.

Today we will sleep again in the beachhouse. But I'm not very relaxed. Right now, the water is just 10 feet away from our veranda and the wind is blowin! But all the people around us told this is fine; no pasa nada....

aloha"

Watching the videos of the tsunami in Japan give us pause. We are 330 yards (measured by a golfer friend's rangefinder) from the ocean. We live in a fault zone. There are small (2.3-3.5 magnitude) earthquakes around us every day. They are so small and usually far enough away we don't even feel them. In the last year local officials have put up signs about the tsunami danger zones along the coast. When officials came by a year or so ago passing out information literature, their advice to us was "if you see a tsunami, run very fast up the hill."

Which kind of point outs how pointless such advice is. How would we know if there was a tsunami approaching? I don't know how we would get the kind of warning time our friends in Maui got. I have not seen or heard warning sirens here. By the time we saw a tsunami it would be pretty late to "run very fast up the hill."

In October, 1918, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake rocked the ocean floor about 15 kilometers (less than 10 miles) west of Puerto Rico in the Mona Passage. The quake destroyed buildings in Mayaguez. Just moments after the quake, a 12-foot high wall of water devastated Aguadilla, killing 40 people. The greatest wave height, 20 feet, hit Punta Boriquen, the beach area just below the cliff where the golf course is today. That tsunami destroyed the Spanish lighthouse whose ruins can still be seen along the road back to Wilderness Beach.

From Ola Lola's Garden Bar

Punta Borinquen was the hardest hit area in the 1918 tsunami.

Like many things in Nature, the possibility of a tsunami is something we are aware of but don't live in fear of. We just hope those little shocks keep releasing enough pressure between the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates so there isn't a big quake and a tsunami.

Back to The Wall

2011-03-01T10:25:00.000-04:00

Seven of us - Darryl, John D., Patti, Suzanne, Jen, Charlie and I - went back to The Wall at La Parguera Sunday, diving with West Divers. West Divers have been around for a number of years but recently reopened with new owners.

We had a little boat trouble on the ride out (water in the fuel) and ended up abandoning the second dive but the first dive was amazing.

I love diving The Wall. The Wall is actually a 28-mile-long cliff in the seafloor about four to five miles off shore. Yesterday we dove a site called Efra's Wall, one of more than a dozen recognized dive sites along The Wall. The drop off the boat is to about 60-65 feet. You swim down a gentle decline to about 75 feet and then the bottom falls out. You swim out over the edge of the cliff. the bottom is another 65 to 80 feet below you at 130 to 160 feet. (A little further out is another vertical drop to over 1,000 feet deep.)

As I swam over the edge of The Wall and looked toward the bottom below, there was no sense of fear, no sense I might fall. My friend Darryl and I talked about the feeling as you move a little away from The Wall, separating yourself from "land." It is as close as we will ever get to being in space. I was suspended, weightless, motionless, unconnected, peaceful. Then the beauty of The Wall drew me back and I swam on.

Most of the dive along The Wall is between 80 and 100 feet, depending on the divers. You then come back up The Wall and swim back to the boat at 55-65 feet along the edge of the cliff.

Colors are naturally filtered out as you get deeper, starting with reds and yellow so many underwater photos appear more blue and green than normal. The deeper you go the more pronounced this filtering effect is. But the reverse is also true: As you come up, there is less filtering. So as you ascend from 85 to 55 feet there is more apparent color in the corals and fish. It's interesting to watch the colors "reappear" as you ascend.

You can see more pictures from the dive on our Flickr page.

Promises, promises

2011-02-28T07:38:00.000-04:00

So much for a new picture every day. Sheesh! So here's a whole bunch at once:

"Someone to watch over me" It's very unusual to see both horses lying down asleep at the same time. Usually, one will stand guard while the other lies down. Must have been a tough day for Chocolate because he's "laying" guard over KTJ. But he is sleeping-alert and watching over her.

We did a little "hometown tourist" stuff this week. Tuesday evening we had drinks and appetizers at the Eclipse at Villa Montana and had a wonderful time. Great mojitos by the way - almost as good as the mojitos at Ola Lola's. (The photo of the Eclipse and the beach in front of Villa Montana is from a recent KAP session.)

Then on Wednesday, we went to Sonya Rican on Playa Jobos and sat watching the beach and eating marlin bites and drinking cold Coronas.

On Thursday night, our friend Darryl and I did a night dive at Natural. (No pictures - it was a night dive!) We were within touching distance of one of the largest green turtles I've ever seen and heard whales singing somewhere off in the night. Awesome!

I did get in a KAP session at Shacks this week, trying to do something fun with kitesurfers. This is my favorite of the set.

I also managed a couple of surf photography sessions this week at Wilderness. You can see more from these sessions on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com.

More to come!

How did I miss Valentine's Day?

2011-02-17T07:13:00.000-04:00

I missed Valentine's Day?!?!?!?! How did THAT happen? We had a pretty busy week at Ola Lola's - lots of prep and set up but there is no excused for missing Valentine's Day!

So - somewhat belatedly - Happy Valentine's Day!

This week's adventures: my Tuesday Adventure was spending most of my morning back in Puerto Rican court while the lawyer for the guy we believe stole the Pathfinder (and broke into our friend's rental car and stole her laptop, camera and clothes) cut a deal to drop the charge from felony possession of a stolen car to a misdemeanor. He does have to pay us restitution but only for the actual damage to the car. Since there is not enough proof he actually stole the car and broke into the other cars, all that has nothing to do with the charges. ARRRGH! But at least he has to pay something and will now have something on his record. Of course, he's probably going to pay restitution with the proceeds from selling the other stuff he stole from us.

My Wednesday Adventure was much better. Darryl and I and two new dive buddys dove a new (to me at least) site in downtown Aguadilla in front of Rompiola's. This is a very cool site, like a combination of Natural (one of our favorite dive sites) and Wishing Well (a favorite snorkeling and sometime dive site). Natural is a beautiful reef and so is Rompiola's. But like Wishing Well, Rompiola's is a shallow dive, bottoming at 20' or so. For a diver that means you can stay down and explore for a long time. (A tank of air lasts longer at shallow depths than at deeper depths.) So this is a very cool new site, one that Elaine and I can dive together. It's her kind of dive - not too deep, lots to see, easy to get to, easy entry, very little current, short swim out. Wow! What more can you want?

Kite surfers are happy

2011-02-11T06:56:00.000-04:00

The kite surfers are happy - the winds have been howling. The surfers on the other hand are crying. This is the longest no-surf stretch in February that anyone can remember. A friend who has lived and surfed here for more than 30 years has never seen anything like this flat stretch. I haven't even gone out to look for surfers in almost a month.

I have done some KAPping though. This is from a late-afternoon session this week KAPping the beach at Bajura and the kite surfers at Shacks. There are some really nice images. The best are posted on Flickr.

There is supposed to be a little bump in the surf today and tomorrow so I'm headed out to see if there is anyone out. I'll let you know.

Happy birhtday, Marti

2011-02-07T07:19:00.001-04:00

Today would have been my mother's 84th birthday. Happy birthday, Marti! We miss you.

2011-02-07T07:19:00.000-04:00

Where did the week go?

2011-02-05T23:14:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day.

We had two parties at Ola Lola's last week. The first was a birthday party for our friend Kelda, her first birthday party since she was like 10. Happy birthday, Kelda.

The second was a going away party for our good friends Steve and Tracy. Steve's job has been moved from PR to Las Vegas, a move that seems to make no sense but there it is. Good luck and safe travels to you guys. We know you're giving up diving in warm waters for hiking through sand, but we know you'll always find something fun to do.

Let's see...I haven't been diving, although it's not for lack of trying. We had a trip planned to go to Coffin Island off the south coast of the island, but that fell through. Then a couple of us were going to dive the wall off La Parguera with a new dive operator and that got canceled. We had two night dives planned for this week but neither of those worked out. A group headed to Rincon to dive at Desecheo Island on Saturday. By the time I called to get a seat, the boat was full.

No surf to speak of so I haven't been shooting pictures of surfers.

So what have I been doing? I've been riding Chocolate almost every day. KTJ spooked and threw Elaine last week and she (Elaine) has a badly bruised, very sore backside. So I've been riding Chocolate to give him some exercise. One we went all the way to Survival Beach (where the trail rides go) all by ourselves. I was pretty proud of that. Yesterday I worked him hard enough to make him sweat. We're actually getting much better together. I can't wait for Elaine to heal so we can ride together.

I did manage to get in two KAP (Kite Aerial Photography sessions this week, one at Shacks and an early morning session at Montones. That's a site I've wanted to KAP for a long time. As always, it was a learning experience. I'll have to take what I learned and go back again. The timing is difficult: for all the wind we have, we don't usually have good wind early in the morning, near sunrise, which is when I want to shoot this particular beach. Another adventure for another day. You can see the best from these two sessions on Flickr.

Adventure Tuesday

2011-01-28T06:05:00.000-04:00

This week's Adventure Tuesday had multiple adventures.

I got to go diving for only the second time this year. Darryl was taking a couple from the States to Crashboat and I got to tag along.

Then Elaine, Kelda and I went to the Guajataca Forest and to the Cave of the Wind. Finally, after four years, we made it to Bosque de Guajataca!

Like many journeys, the hike to the cave itself is part of the adventure. It's about a 40 minute hike up to the cave. The area is crisscrossed with trails. The map we got from the ranger station was a great help keeping us on the right path.

The trail is narrow and frequently rocky. As it winds upward, it crosses back and forth over what must be a ridge. First a vertical wall is on your left and a drop-off of a hundred feet or more is on your right. Then suddenly you realize they've switched: the drop-off is on the left and the wall is on the right. Then back again. And yet again. Bosque de Guajataca is a rain forest but this is the dry season here in Puerto Rico so the trails were dry. I suspect the trails can be pretty slippery and treacherous in the rainy season. The good news is even if you slipped off the trail, you could fall far because the trees grow tight against the trail.

On the trail we met another couple coming out. They asked if we were going to the cave and when we said "yes," asked if we had a flashlight "'cause you're going to need one!" When we said we didn't have a flashlight, they gave us theirs, one they borrowed from the ranger station.

As you near the cave, the trail starts a steep descent with a couple of cut backs. It ends on a platform at the cave entrance. A set of narrow creepy-looking narrow wooden stairs spirals down into the darkness. We all stood there a moment, not really sure of the wisdom of disappearing into the darkness, all three of us a little freaked out by it.

As we started down, we were really really happy to have that flashlight. Within just a few feet of the bottom of the stairs the circle of light from the cave opening was absorbed by the dark. It was pretty much impossible to see anything.

The light from the flash revealed a surprisingly large open cave that disappeared into the hillside to both the left and the right with fascinating, unexpected limestone structures underground. Creepy, but amazingly beautiful. I have no pictures from inside the cave: the flash on my little camera quit working. But we're already planning another adventure to the cave, this time with more lights and cameras. Now that we've been there once we probably won't be as freaked out by it. Probably.

A week in a day

2011-01-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

We've had no - or at best very limited - Internet access for the last week so here are the daily photos I would have posted all week.

Elaine riding KTJ on the beach from a morning ride we took together. Yes, we actually got to ride together!

Sunset through the palm trees at Playa Bajura at the end of "Deadend" Road. Playa Bajura is the stretch of beach east of Shacks going toward Jobos. Even though it is one continuous stretch of beach, each section has a different name.

The full moon rising over the field next to Ola Lola's. I was just coming back from walking the dogs. I forgot it was a full moon night. If I'd stayed on the beach a few more minutes, this would have been a picture of the moon rising over the ocean.

The ocean at Shacks Beach yesterday morning. We don't often see the ocean this flat at this time of year, especially here on the North Shore.

Our dogs, Amber and Jazz, love to swim. This is quick underwater snap of Amber under water.

Our friend Janelle whale-watching on Shacks Beach.

Good karma

2011-01-16T10:48:00.001-04:00

We got the Pathfinder back! Remember the one that was stolen? Thursday we picked the vehicle from the police impound. We had it towed to a mechanic to have the steering column and ignition rebuilt from where the thieves tore it apart to hotwire it. It's dinged up in places it wasn't before but basically it's sound and runs good. The new tires are still on it and the new battery is still in it. The stereo and the spare tire are gone but oh, well.

The thieves took all the surf stickers off it but they didn't bother to use Goo-gone to take the glue off so you can still see the outlines. They wrote "se vende" (for sale) on the window with a telephone number but only the area code and six digits.

The police found the car in Aguadilla. A 20-year-kid was joyriding it up and down the street and making the neighbors nervous. They called the cops. The police stopped the kid, ran the VIN, and it popped as stolen. The original license plate is gone and it had a plate stolen from another car on it.

The kid denied stealing it; he says he bought it. The police officer told him, "fine. Bring the guy you bought it from in with you and we'll only charge you with possession of stolen property, rather than Grand Theft Auto." Still waiting to see if that happens.

On Tuesday we go see the district attorney to discuss charges and restitution.

We are all truly amazed that the car was recovered. I'm really happy we have our karma and not the thieves.

The hurrider I go...

2011-01-11T22:54:00.000-04:00

My first whale sighting at Wilderness this morning.

the behinder I get.

The new year is less than two weeks old and I'm already behind. Not because there's nothing to write about, but because there is SO MUCH going on.

I haven't written yet about the great night we had with the band Los Petardos on Sunday. This was Day Two of our Sirah's Birthday Celebration Weekend (even though she's back in Colorado). It was a great party and lots of fun with a whole bunch of friends, new and familiar. Thanks to all the guys in the band and to everyone who came out to celebrate.

After a long, unintentional hiatus due to crappy waves, crappy light and much work over the holidays, I finally got back out to photograph surfers this week.

This morning I had my first whale sighting while shooting at Wilderness Beach. There were at least two whales. They didn't fully breech but we did see them come up to breathe. They weren't very far outside the lineup. All the stand up paddleboarders, who are standing on their boards (duh!) and thus had a better view, all turned around to watch.

Besides the whale photo, I got some great shots of surfers. You can see them on our website, PuertoRicoSurfPhoto.com. As soon as I get a little time, I'll put a set on Flickr as well. Enjoy. Hopefully, there are lots more to come this season.

Morning beach ride

2011-01-09T10:08:00.000-04:00

We took a little beach ride this morning to let the horses go swimming - or at least wade around in the ocean a bit. Elaine rode KTJ, Sam rode her 32-year-old Paso Fino Nappy and I rode Chocolate.

Damn, that boy has a boney back to ride bareback!

KTJ did really well. She waded in a little and pawed at the water then walked back in the water at the edge. That's pretty amazing. Just a couple of months ago she would have spooked sideways and moved up the beach away from the water. Now she's taking it in stride, literally.

Chocolate was a pistol. Because Elaine has been sick all week, he hasn't been riden as much as usual and he was a handful. Hanging on was the worse because I didn't had a proper bridle, just a halter with a rope. I didn't feel like I had much control so we didn't venture in the water. But we made it and had a good time doing it. I probably won't try riding with just a halter again anytime soon.

Happy Birthday, Sirah!

2011-01-08T13:47:00.000-04:00

First let wish Sirah a very very happy birthday. We're happy you get to spend your birthday with your Colorado family but your Puerto Rico family misses you a ton.

This morning Darryl, John D., Kelda, a visitor named Curt and I went on a birthday celebration dive. Thank you, Sirah! It was one of the most beautiful days we've ever had at Shacks. The ocean was like a lake - calm, flat, no wind, no chop, no surge. Visibility was unbelievable - 70' or more. We saw a turtle in Blue Hole, before the dive even started. We saw three spotted eagle rays during the dive. We don't get many days like this in the summer, let alone in January.

Happy birthday, Sirah! Hope it was great in Colorado. We missed you here in PR.

Feliz Dia del Tres Reyes

2011-01-06T07:46:00.000-04:00

Today is Three Kings Day, also known as Epiphany and Twelfth Night. Today celebrates the day when the Bible says the the three kings/wisemen/magi arrived in Bethlehem with gifts for the baby Jesus.

In many Puerto Rican households today is a bigger day than Christmas Day itself. Last night churches were crowded, more so even than on Christmas Eve as many churches here don't have Christmas Eve services. Today is a day for exchanging gifts. In many households Christmas Day brings small gifts while larger gifts are reserved for Three Kings Day.

Three Kings Eve has a tradition that echos stockings hung on the fireplace mantle and leaving cookies and milk for Santa: before they go to bed on Three Kings Eve, Puerto Rican children put hay or grass in their shoes and slide them under their beds. The hay is to feed the Kings' camels. In the morning the children wake up to find the hay gone (presumably eaten by the camels) and sweets or presents in their shoes. (Hey - camels in Puerto Rico is no weirder than flying reindeer in, say, Arizona.)

It's hard to describe "typical" when it come to PR Christmas. There are so many "northern" traditions that have been introduced here, most of them terribly incongruous. For example, we have an inflatable snowman sitting in a chair in front of Ola Lola's. There are strings of snowflake lights in people's yards. Most of the people have only seen snow in pictures. There are wreaths on doors and buildings. Some places - mostly Walmart/Sam's/Amigo - sell cut Christmas trees shipped by container ship from Oregon and Washington. I think that's just weird. Images of Santa in a red suit trimmed in fur are pretty strange when it's 80+ degrees.

I have heard some older Puerto Ricans bemoaning the loss of local traditions. Many of them blame the change on the government's crackdown on drunk driving over the holidays. "Family parties aren't as big as the used to be" according to one old timer (although it's hard to imagine how big they must have been in the past given some I've been to and seen).

The other tradition that has suffered is the paranda. A paranda is like caroling on steroids. You get together a bunch of your friends, at least one of which is really a musician, and go to another friend's house at, say, 2:00 a.m. You sing, you play music, you bang on drums or kitchen pots or plastic buckets. In return for this joyful awakening your host friend is obligated to provide food and drink (preferably coquito made with pitoro, the local "moonshine") for the entire paranda band. After feeding you, your host joins the paranda and you move on to the next victim's, er, friend's house. This continues until daybreak or until everyone is passed out in someone's yard. You can see where a few DUI's would put a damper on this tradition.

However, according to Fox News Latino (always a reliable source), Puerto Rico does have the longest Christmas season in the world. They do have couple of things wrong though. Christmas does not start at Thanksgiving. It starts at Halloween which is really just there to remind people that the Christmas season has officially started. (Halloween is not a huge holiday here, but it's growing.) Thanksgiving is just another part of Christmas, the first BIG family party of the season. The big box stores, particularly Walmart and Kmart, have two seasons, summer and Christmas. Each store has a section dedicated to "seasonal." About the third week of September they take out all the summer lawn-and-garden stuff and put in aisle after aisle of Christmas. Then, about the end of January, they take out what's left of picked-over Christmas stuff and put the lawn-and-garden stuff back in.

On a somewhat more serious note, I do take issue with the Fox report's emphasis on depression and suicide here during the Christmas season. Not that it's not true; it is. But no more so here than anywhere else. The holidays are a time of increased depression and suicide EVERYWHERE, not just in Puerto Rico.

So be HAPPY this season!

an ocean to match a mood

2011-01-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Dark, cold, choppy, disorganized, all dampened by a passing rain squall.

Fortunately, a few moments later the sun reappeared and at least lightened the ocean's mood if not mine.

A great anniversary adventure

2010-12-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

It was a gift anniversary gift from Elaine but she didn't go with me share it. (She's currently looking for more hammock time, not more adrenalin.) But I had a great time with friends (although I missed Elaine; I love sharing adventures with her).

Batey Zipline Adventures is way up in the mountains about an hour and a half from us. Over the past seven years Jorge and his family and friends have built an amazing nature adventure park in some of the most beautiful property I've ever seen.

Like rural mountain areas everywhere, things are different here. The adventure begins on the road in. The road is (mostly) a solid one-lane wide, flanked on one side by the vertical stone side of the mountain and on the other by a steep, several hundred-foot drop. I've been in the Smokie Mountains and in the Rockies and I don't think I've ever seen such steeply pitched roads. There are four things your vehicle needs: good brakes, a strong transmission, lots of low-end torque and a good horn. You drive up a steep incline. As you reach the top. it's like a good roller-coaster: you literally cannot see what is over the crest. Does it go down in a steep drop? Is there a curve? Is there another car coming? (This is where the good horn comes in to play.)

Once we got to the office, we looked across a spectacular karst valley to Jorge's house. We didn't know it yet but that's where the Zipline Adventure begins. We piled into the back of a 4x4 pickup for a short ride down a dirt track that was just like the road we came in on - without the pavement. We stopped above a ford across the river (Rio Tanamá) and piled out of the truck. Rather than ford the river we crossed on a suspended swinging bridge then climbed up to Jorge's house.

At the house we put on climbing harnesses, climbing helmets and gloves then a short climb/walk to the first zipline start platform. Jorge - and seven-year-old Alyssa - were the first off. Jorge zipped to the other side to be the "catcher" for the rest of us. Paulo stayed on our side to make sure we were hooked up properly.

All the zip lines are double. That is, there are two cables and two wheel rigs each time you zip. Before he took off, Jorge showed us how to "steer" using the caribiner at the top of our harness. "But", he said, "you don't have to steer or even hang on. Whether you're sideways or backwards, I'll be on the other side to catch you."

Zipping is awesome! With each successive zip, we got more comfortable, letting go, even hanging upside down (well, some people did).

After the third zip, we got to rappel down a 70-foot cliff. I've never rappelled before and this was something I was really looking forward to. Hmmm - I was much more nervous about it than I thought I would be. I let myself down slowly and it was only when I reached the bottom that I realized how tense I was. But I loved it. I want to that again. I'll be a lot more comfortable next time. (And there will be a next time!)

The last two zips were across the river. Wow - just amazingly beautiful. Once we "zipped" to the river level, we got in two small boats and paddled up river and through the river's cave. All along the route, Jorge gave us information about the land, folklore of the area, and a bit of geology. In the cave, in addition to bats nesting high above us, we saw plastic bottles and bamboo jammed into crevices, left there by the last flood. This cave, more than 20 feet high in places, completely fills with water when the river floods.

On the up-river side of the cave, Jorge showed us a spring with clear drinking water pouring from the hillside. Jorge caught water in a cup made of a leaf to share.

We drifted back through the cave to just below the swinging bridge. Another ride it the back of a four-wheel drive pickup brought us back to the starting point. but the adventure wasn't completely over yet. There was still that drive back out to the main road.

If you can't tell, I am completely taken with this adventure. It's definitely in my top five fun things. I am really impressed with the way Jorge has built this playground into a spectacular natural setting. Thank you, guys, for a great adventure. And thank you, mi querida, for making it possible. Next time, you're going along.

Happy Anniversary, Mi Querida

2010-12-29T13:08:00.000-04:00

Six years ago on beach in Barbados, we said "I do." Thank you, mi querida, my amor. You are the love of my life.