Surf season

Surf season has begun in earnest. We got double-overhead waves from Hurricane Gonzalo But that was just one day. We've pretty good surf for a couple of weeks. We already have 10 galleries of photos up on our website, www.PuertoRicoSurfPhoto.com. That's just so far this month. I think that's about the total for all of last surf season. One, it was a bad surf year. Two, with Elaine in St. Lucia, I just couldn't get out much. Here's hoping that will be very different this year.

In addition to our website you can also see our photos on Flickr. Take a few minutes and check 'em out. We hope you enjoy them!

Dodged one that time.

 For a couple of days we sat here and watched Tropical Storm Gonzalo take aim at la isla. Just before it hit the island the tropical storm strengthened to a Cat 1 hurricane.

And then, Gonzalo made a hard right turn away from us. We got a little rain, a little wind and today some waves from the storm but that's it.

Now, Gonzalo is a Cat 3 hurricane churning toward Bermuda. Latest forecast indicate the storm is weakening a bit so Bermuda may only see tropical storm force winds.

We were lucky. The northernmost of the Lesser Antilles - St Marrtin, St Martin, St Barths, Antiqua - were hit pretty hard. We were spared. And we're grateful.

Visitor from another island

We recently had a visitor from another island - Elaine's (and my) friend, Elaine from St. Lucia. That's Elaine on the left and Elaine on the right.

So how does one entertain a guest from another island? Well, first you ask! "What do you want to do while you're here?" Fortunately for us Elaine had some pretty definite ideas: horseback riding on the beach, snorkeling, scuba diving.

As I've written before, all those things are available in St. Lucia but the options are more limited than here in PR. And, each island is different. Riding on the beach in St. Lucia is not the same as riding here.

We got her off to a great start. She'd barely arrived when we took her swimming with the horses.

For her first beach ride, she rode Chocolate bareback.

The next morning it was off for a full-on beach ride, the first of several.

After riding and a bit of lunch, we were all off to Wishing Well to snorkel at one of our favorite sites.

 They were almost too tired for the pot-luck party at Ola Lola's (since we weren't open).

Another day, another ride on the beach. Then, scuba diving!

 

For a final adventure, we all went to La Parguera to snorkel among the mangroves.

And a Lucian picnic in Puerto Rico - Pitons (the really good beer from St. Lucia) and homemade "bakes."

We managed to knock quite a few things off Elaine's "50 things to do in my 50s" list. So much fun!