Promises, promises

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?

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

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

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

Where did the week go?

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.