Another sunny no rain day.
Off to Home Depot in Hatillo for fence posts. Not many people on the island seem to use T-posts but suddenly they are a hot item. The 50 posts that were "no problem" on Wednesday? Today there were only 38 posts in Hatillo. The Home Depot in Bayamon had 0. Ultimately we need 80 new posts. Oh well. We'll start with what we have.
Even more than usual we have to piece things together. It is very rare to find everything we need in one place. Most projects take at least two an frequently more stops.
After my early morning trip to Hatillo, we decided to check out the beach and the water at Wishing Well. Wishing Well, or Peña Blanca, has always been one of our favorite snorkeling spots. The reef, with beautiful soft seafan and featherduster corals waving in the current, starts right at the beach. It is home to schools of blue tang, ocean surgeon, and sargent major fish and almost always a turtle or two. Or five. Or six.
Once little known and little used, the two beaches stretching on either side of a rocky point have grown in popularity in the past two or three years. Where once we could have the whole place to ourselves, lately it's been hard to find a parking place.
Today there is no sand anywhere. Both sides are bare rocks and boulders. The rocks are always there, they are just usually covered with sand. And it's not only the beach. In the water the sand was stripped away by storm-driven waves leaving a treacherous foot-grabbing rocky entry.
In the water we found pretty much what we've come to expect: visibility about 30' and murky. Most of the soft corals were stripped away. A few remain in some of the cracks and crevices where they were protected.
There is hope however. A number of small featherduster corals have taken hold. And, we saw a juvenile hawksbill turtle.
It's not the Wishing Well we've known; it won't be for a long time. But there is hope.
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