The picture says it all!

But in case you missed it, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM!

We had a little birthday party last night for our favorite caballera. Even Chocolate got into the spirit of the party.

Kelly is still here

Ten-time world champion Kelly Slater has been surfing some of our other surf breaks since winning his tenth title and the Rip Curl Pro Search last Saturday. Yesterday I had to honor of photographing Kelly and local surfers Brian Toth and his brother Wesley as they ripped it up, catching barrel after barrel at Survival Beach. You can see more pictures from this session on our website and on our Flickr page.

If you've been on the beach horseback ride near us, then you've been to Survival Beach. The rocks at the end of Survival, where the trailride ends, mark the boundary between Survival Beach and the east end of Surfers Beach, called Table Tops. Not many people surf the wave around the rocks. It's not easy to get to and the waves pounding around the rocks are dangerous. This section doesn't "go off" all that often. But when it does - and it has been going off for the last two days - a few in-the-know surfers head there. That's where Kelly Slater and friends were yesterday.

I went along with the entourage of friends, photographers, videographers, and spectators and had a great time photographing one of the all-time greats in the sport. I only wish my photos could do his surfing justice.

The Rip Curl Pro Search

It's been quite a week here in Isabela. Rip Curl (a surfing marketing company) brought a major international surf competition to Middles Beach for the first time ever. Middles and Puerto Rico delivered, big time. Great waves, great atmosphere, great support, great crowds - especially the final two days. (The KAP photo above is from the first day of competition. Ther crowds were much bigger the final two days. I wanted to KAP the beach during the finals, but alas, no wind.)

Rip Curl for their part brought the best men and women surfers in the world to Isabela. They put on a surfing exhibition like nothing most of us have have seen. Australia's Stephanie Gilmore not only won the women's event she also claimed her fourth consecutive world title here. Kelly Slater put his name in the record books (again!) when he did the double: He took the men's event title and wrapped up his unprecedented tenth world championship. Along the way we got watch the likes of Stephanie and Carrissa Moore and Coco Ho and Dane Reynolds and Taj Burrow and and Mick Fanning so many more. And we got to meet Carrissa Moore, Rosanne Hodge, Roy Powers, Damian Hobgood and Kelly Slater.

One of our local surfers, Dylan Graves, earned a spot in the main event by besting 15 other Puerto Rican surfers (including his brother Josie) in the Local Trial event. Dylan made it through to the third round where he was paired with none other than Kelly Slater. Dylan surfed very well and in fact led for much of the round. Kelly, the ultimate professional, did what he needed to do to advance. This produced what was for me "the moment" of the event when Kelly Slater paddled over to congratulate Dylan Graves:


You can see more pictures of the event on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com and of course all over the Internet.

I've been involved with special events for more than 25 years. I have to say, this was one of the best organized, best put together events I've ever seen. Few controversies (there are those who believe Dylan should have won his heat against Kelly), heats ran like clockwork, the announcing and information was very good. I've kind of disparaged some of the other surf competitions I've seen but this was first-class all the way. I still don't understand the judging but oh well. I knew what I liked when I saw it.

I think in the long-run this will be good for surfing and tourism in Puerto Rico, especially here in the West. As for short-term business, several businesses seemed to get a lot of traffic from the event. Many of us did not. We got a small but welcome trickle. Since some of the surfers aren't leaving until Tuesday or Wednesday maybe we'll get a bit more.

All in all an impressive fun week. We're going to miss the excitement this event has generated. The surfers all seem really stoked about what Puerto Rico has to offer. Maybe they'll create an event and make this a regular stop. We can only hope.

We now return your surf breaks to the regular surfers.

RIP Andy Irons

I've been trying to find time to write about the Rip Curl Pro Search surf tournament this week at Middles Beach (about two miles from Ola Lola's). The best men and women surfers in the world are right here in Isabela. Stephanie Gilmore, 22, from Australia, won not only the women's competition but her fourth consecutive world title (in four tries). Kelly Slater is on track to win an unprecedented 10th world title.

Yesterday, the joy of having the competition in our back yard was eclipsed by the news that three-time world champion Andy Irons died in a hotel room in Texas. Andy was scheduled to compete here but he withdrew before the competition started due to illness. He apparently contracted dengue fever at a competition last week in Portugal. Right now, pending information from the autopsy, dengue may have killed him (although there are questions surrounding his death).

Today more than a hundred surfers paddled out at Middles Beach - the last break, the last wave Andy Irons surfed - to honor and pay respects to one of their own.

It was an amazing, emotional moment. I'm glad I got to share it, even from the shore. You can see more photos on our website, www.puertoricosurfphoto.com

The boardwalk

The Municipio de Isabela is building a "paseo lineal" - a linear pathway - from Villa Pesquera west to Jobos. The trail is complete to Middles Beach but construction continues from Middles to Jobos.

Most of the trail is at road level but near the western end the trail rises to the top of the rock at Jobos on this board walk. I wanted to KAP the construction since I first saw the posts going in. We haven't had any appreciable breeze, certainly not enough to KAP, until this week. Finally I got to KAP the project. The project is farther along than I wanted but I did manage a few "forest in the trees" shots of the posts.


You can see the best of the shoot in a set on Flickr.

So, where we been?

It's been a very busy couple of weeks since we got back. There was a ton of work to do to reopen after being away, getting ready for the "Everybody in September Birthday Party," having company from the States for a week, dealing with rain and minor flooding courtesy of a couple of hurricanes passing by. You know - just the usual.

WHOA! We interrupt ourselves with some great news: Ola Lola's got mentioned twice (in a good way) in a New York Times blog/article. We met author Seth Kugel a couple of weeks ago when our friend Laura brought him to Ola Lola's and introduced him. Of course, Laura just introduced him as a friend; we had no idea he was a writer for the NYT. Then she sent us an email telling us about the article. How cool is that? Ola Lola's has gotten some great "press" this year. The NYT article comes right after the great recommendation/review in Fodor's Puerto Rico 2010 which was published in August. (When you get to the page, click on "Look inside." In the search box type Ola Lola's. You have to scroll down just a bit to read our review.) And we had a great review (written by a local chef) in La Isla Reader, a new magazine in the region. Awesome!!

Next week, by request, Elaine is going to be "guest burger chef" at a United Way fundraiser at a local company. That should be fun!

We're also gearing up for a major international surfing competition coming to town at the end of the month. Kelly Slater just won a major competition in Portugal. If he wins here in PR, here in Isabela actually, he will win his 1oth consecutive world title. You may have read about Kelly recently - "the most successful athlete you've never heard of." If he wins this year's title, he will be the winningest, most successful athlete ever in any sport. And he's going to be right down the road from Ola Lola's (somewhere). Hmmm - I wonder if he eats burgers. Maybe we could name one after him. The Kelly Slater Slider?

We interrupt "Notes from the road"

Middles Beach hosted the annual Corona Pro competition this weekend. It's the first time I've seen this event with actual waves. There are a number of local photographers who cover this event so I do something different: I photograph the event from my kite. Mostly I shoot beach and crowd shots rather than photographing the surfers themselves although there is one surfer shot in the set. You can see the best of the photos from this session on Flickr.

This was my first KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) session since July 4th. I felt very rusty. I picked the wrong kite for the conditions which lead to a lot of camera bounce and movement. My aiming skills were so-so. I don't use a video downlink like some KAPpers use to see what they are shooting. I prefer the surprises when I download the pictures at home. Still, with practice, you get a pretty good idea of what you're pointing out. I am way out of practice. That just means I need to get out and do it more.

I guess we missed some epic surf (and absolutely NO diving) while we were gone, courtesy of Hurricane Igor. Ah, well. There will be more surf and more competitions. We're gearing up to host two major international competition at the end of October. More about those as we get closer.

Notes from the road - Chihuly at Meijer Gardens

We heard Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was hosting an exhibit of works by glass artist Dale Chihuly. We've seen Chihuly's work before, at Meijer Gardens and elsewhere, and that became a "must-see" on our trip.

As we drove through driving rain, we wondered how much of the exhibit we'd be able to see. The "exhibit" is actually a series of installations of works around the garden and sculpture park grounds. It wasn't going to be a lot fun in the rain. Just before we got to Meijer Gardens the rain stopped and left us with a comfortable but cloudy afternoon.

One goal of Meijer Gardens "is to unite the art of humankind with the art of nature." This seems to be a passion of Chihuly as well. In 2002 Lisa C. Roberts wrote in the Portland Press:

"Imagine a garden of glass, planted under glass, nestled among lacy ferns, soaring palms, spiny cacti, and fruiting bananas. To see Dale Chihuly's magnificent artwork displayed amid the plant kingdom from which so many of his forms seem to emanate is to see both art and plants in a new light. Each reflects the other in a shimmery mix of tendrils, buds, and fronds. The fact that this dance takes place within the walls of a historic glasshouse makes it that much more resonant, as though someone had subverted the boundaries between the house and its leafy occupants.

"And why not? Conservatories are, after all, exquisitely crafted re-creations of natural environments. Introducing Chihuly's glasswork takes the manipulation to another level, one that aspires to stimulation, not simulation. It startles expectation, stretches the imagination, and provides a new way of experiencing both plants and art."

Roberts could have been writing about the Meijer Gardens installations as well. At Meijer Gardens however, the installations are both inside the conservatories but outside, placed in specific environments in the gardens and sculpture park. In these installations the hard, man-made glass seems to grow from the softer natural environment.

One of the wonderful things about sculpture is its existence in three-dimensional space. You can move around it, view it from different angles. Each new angle is a new experience. In the Chihuly installations, the space itself is part of the sculpture, not just a neutral background. Moving through the garden space around each sculpture changes not only your view of the sculpture but of its place in the landscape. Each new view is a surprise.

We took a whole bunch o' pictures of the Chihuly works. You can see the best of them on our Flickr page. The exhibit has been extended through October 31. If you are anywhere near the West Michigan area, go see it!

Notes from the road - Frank Mots International Kite Festival

The reason we started the trip in the first place was to perform at the Frank Mots International Kite Festival in Milwaukee. We've performed at this festival for a number of years. We are fortunate and very grateful event producer Scott Fisher invites us back each year. We LOVE Milwaukee! We posted several videos on youtube of our friends performing: iQuad, Fire and Ice, and Yves LaForest flying a huge 140-foot-long octopus. BTW, there is some loose talk about Yves and friends bringing their giant kites to a beach in Isabela in late 2011. We'll let you know.

There is on video of us flying as part of a megateam. Many of us fly Mamba kites built by Ken McNeil of Blue Moon Kites in North Carolina. Ken made an unexpected appearance at Mots and this megateam of 12 Mambas was formed to thank him. You can see a video of the mega team here. We're flying the yellow, red and black kites near the end.

Notes from the road - It's just not the same

We stopped for a beer at a little bar called "I-5's" beside a marina on Lake Erie. I mean, the place had a big sign that said "It's 5 o'clock somewhere." How bad could it be? Turns out, pretty bad. The decor mixed Caribbean - or more Key West, really - with bad tiki bar. And the metal palm trees just didn't fix our jones for the palm trees in our yard at home. But the beer - Landshark, no less - was cold and tasted good.

Inspiration

We stopped at Bearden's on our quick trip across northern Ohio. Bearden's is the diner Elaine and her family went to when she was a kid. The Bearden's peanutbutter burger is the inspiration for the Ola Lola's peanutbutter burger. I finally got to taste the original.


I gotta say, as good as it was, Elaine's is better. Once again, she's taken a good thing and made it better. And because the peanutbutter burger is a little unusual, ours comes with a guarantee: if like peanutbutter and you don't like our peanutbutter burger, the peanutbutter burger is free and we'll buy you a different burger. With more than 250 peanutbutter burgers sold we've only had to honor that guarantee once (and we think the surfer was poor and hungry and wangleing for a free burger).

Herald of fall

What the...!?! This doesn't look like Puerto Rico!

It's not. This staghorn sumac in southern Michigan. We're wrapping up a quick trip to Ohio and Michigan to see family and friends after performing at a kite festival in Milwaukee last weekend.

Staghorn sumac is always one of the first trees to change color in the fall. Red staghorn sumac and cooler temps (it's 57 degrees and thunderstorming as I write this) are sure signs fall is here in southern Michigan.

That, and fresh Honey Crisp apples in the farm markets.

Happy belated birthday to my father. If he were still alive, he would have turned 86 on September 1. He always said his birthday was easy to remember: it was the same day World War II started. (Hitler and the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.) We'll stick to celebrating the birthday.

Back after Earl

So between the preparation for Hurricane Earl and then two days of no electricity and then two more days without Internet after Earl brushed by us, we haven't had much chance to write about Earl.

Fortunately, Earl did in fact brush by us with tropical storm-force winds but nothing near the 140 mph Cat 4 winds he was packing. We had a little rain (very little for a hurricane) but nothing major. In fact it was much less than we'd actually prepared for. The biggest problem was the inconvenience of not having power (which usually also takes out our cell phone) and not having Internet. We were fine but didn't have anyway to let the rest of world know that.

The photo above is the waves pounding Shacks Beach taken Tuesday after Earl passed by Monday afternoon and night. If you look closely, you'll see the spray off the top of the wave is blowing west to east. For two days after Earl went by the winds blew backwards, that is, west to east. The east-to-west trade winds are so common here we all get a little crazy if the winds blow "backwards" for very long.

Earl did us another favor: he sucked a lot of the moisture and the energy out of the atmosphere so the next storm back, Fiona, was pretty much fizzle. Gaston, the storm behind Fiona, fizzled out also but looks like it may be reforming. We'll keep an eye on that one.

For now, it's a beautiful day in Bajuras. We're just going to enjoy that.

They call her "Dances with Reef Squid"

One of the highlights of snorkeling with Don and Linda was an "encounter" with reef squid. We LOVE the reef squid. They are beautiful and fascinating to watch. If you put your hands together and extend your arms, mimicking their tentacles, they will "dance" with you. You can mirror their movements and they will "accept" you into their pod.

Elaine loves to dance with the reef squid, hence her Taino name, "Dances with Reef Squid."

What a great weekend!

We had a lot of fun this weekend. Our friends Don and Linda came to the west side of the island (from their home Fajardo in the east) to celebrate Linda's birthday. In addition to "hanging out" with them at Ola Lola's we took them snorkeling on "our" reef. Much of the conversation - besides how beautiful it is - was about how different the reef here on the west side is from the reefs they snorkel on the east side of the island. Now we can't wait to go visit them and check out their reefs.

It was another good weekend at Ola Lola's as well. In addition to spending time with Don and Linda, we met new friends Ollie and Beth and Robert and Cory. Both couples are from New York, down here visiting. Well, Robert and Cory had a greater, special reason for coming here - they got married on the beach at Villa Montana. Congratulations to the newly-weds!

It's been a beautiful week here on our little corner. Here's hoping it continues for a while!

Bloggers blogging on our blog and on Ola Lola's

Any relationship that starts with "You're our hero!" can only be great.

Last week our new friends Tim and Beth, their sons Auggie and Elliot, and their traveling companions Russ and Jane and their boys Sam and Ike, came to Puerto Rico and Ola Lola's for the first time. Our relationship really did start with Beth saying, "You're our heroes!"

When they were researching places for a family vacation, they happened on a travel blog I wrote when we were just vacationing here, before we moved. That got them to this, the "new" Ola Lola blog and the Ola Lola web site. They wound up coming to Puerto Rico and the one place they had to visit was Ola Lola's. But rather than my telling you their story, it's much better if you read yourself in their own words on their blog:

http://www.bookerdog.com/index.php/2010/08/ola-lolas-garden-bar/

Speaking of blogs - do you write a blog? Have you written about Ola Lola's? Please let us know, either in a comment here or via email. We would love to read and share your blog with others. Thanks.

A great last day

Jason (above) and Jason (below) teeing off on the amazing 13th hole at Royal Isabela.

Monday was Jason and Jason's last day with us. I think it was a good last day for them. They had the rare opportunity to play the golf course at Royal Isabela. I've written about this amazing golf course before. Every time I get chance to see the course it just gets better and better. It is a very challenging course as the two Jasons found out. But it's incredibly beautiful and just to have the opportunity to play it is an honor.

The Jasons are back home now in Michigan, settling back into their lives as we settle back into ours. I hope their trip here was a wonderful for them as it was for us. We love showing off our "new" home. (Is it still "new" after almost four years? Yes! And sharing it with visitors keeps it fresh and new for us.) Snorkeling, SCUBA diving (with a manatee!), playing golf at Royal Isabela, hanging out at Ola Lola's and meeting our cast of characters. All in all, a pretty good vacation I'd say.

Not a bad first day on the island

Our son Jason and his best friend Jason got here in the middle of the night Tuesday night. Yesterday was a pretty good first day. We took them snorkeling (first time for both of them) at Shacks in the morning to (very successfully) get over a little "ocean-phobia." Now they are both hooked. I mean, what's not to love? Their first time out, in addition to the "usual suspects" (blue tang, ocean surgeons, sergeant major fish) they got to dance with reef squid and watch two different flat worms dance.

We took them for a second snorkel to one of our favorite sites, Wishing Well. Viz was okay but wow! So many fish. Ballyhoo. Blue striped grunts. A porcupine fish hanging out under a ledge. Baby brown chromis-es. And to top off the day, they got to swim with a hawksbill turtle.

This morning I'm going to take them to New Hole at Shacks and then we're hoping they're going SCUBA diving with Darryl later today.

It was a great first day and the second is shaping up to be just as good! Oh, and by the way, it was great just to see them!

On "The Wall"

Despite all the rain, July wasn't all bad.

In mid-July I got to dive The Wall off the southern coast of the island again. This time we went with Island Scuba out of Guanica. We were all really impressed with their operation. The people - boat captain, dive master, everybody connected with it - were just great. And I liked their boat better. It's a little heavier than the others we've been on, made for and more stable in heavier seas. Since I am prone to seasickness, I like that.

And of course diving The Wall is just awesome. This time we limited our dive to about 95 feet so we could get a little more "bottom time." Our second dive was on a shallower reef. That too is just beautiful! We had four "shark encounters" with nurse sharks. Like any animal, nurse sharks can be dangerous if provoked. We just enjoyed hanging out with them and watching them. This one got a little tired of us and swam away.

I don't know when I'll get back to dive "The Wall" again but you can be sure I will. I just love it!