It's Morning and The Boys Aren't Home Yet..... it must be
Wednesday
March 11, 2015
Jay and I had planned to wake up early Wednesday morning
(like 6am) and head to the Salt Flats to
capture some sunrise images. Can you
tell that I am absolutely intrigued by them?
I am!
We woke up, got
ready, came out of our room and found that the boys weren't home yet. First issue, we couldn't leave the girls
alone in the condo. Then it hits me, and
HITS me! To get into the condo you need
a key. That's a good thing right? Yes..... keep in mind there are 5 adults, two
tweens and two vehicles. There is one
key to the condo. If that isn't
inconvenient, let's throw in there that
you also need the key to get out of the condo.
Once you are inside, the only way to lock the door is with the key.
Guess where the keys were....with the boys. Nice safe condo huh? Here we are locked in the condo.... what if there was a fire inside, we stuck on
the top floor, were stuck. What if one
of us fell down the steps (the broken step) and broke a limb.... couldn't get
out to get to the hospital. Good
design.... to say I was upset would be an understatement. The boys strolled in around 7am.... they
spent the night with some locals at Steps Beach. Sounds like fun for Tracy and Sean.... Kosti
not so much! Headmaster Hendershott
cancelled school for the day and headed to bed.
A little after 7 Jay
and I headed out to the Salt Flats to explore.
We were too late to catch the sunrise but did get some really fun
images. It's hard to upload images here on the
hotspot. When I uploaded the images this
am to the blog, it used all the available data, so to avoid that, I'm not going
to upload any until we get home.
After the Salt Flats, we drove around exploring. Let me tell you, I love my husband! Every time I saw a "shot" and
asked him to stop or back up so I could jump out and take a picture, he did! We saw another fun Puerto Rico sign, (Krazy Fish) and decided to explore and find
the Krazy Fish. Took us down the road to
the pescadaria. On our way back to the
condo, we stopped at a local "bakery" to pick up milk and ended up
having breakfast there. We got home
and it turned out to be another lazy day.
Seems like a basic boring day, right? Always something. While moving the shower head during hi
shower, the whole pipe broke off the wall.
The pipe actually broke in the wall.
GIven the fact there is no one around at this complex, Jay and Kosti
decided they would fix it themselves.
Off to the hardware store to buy tools. Jay and Kosti worked on it for a while,
that is until Sean went in to help and within minutes (just short of the boys
knocking down the wall) he had it fixed!
Yeah!!!
On to our evening adventure......It just so happens 2 of the
3 bioluminescent bays in the world are in Puerto Rico (the 3rd is in Austrailia). One is in Vieques. Been there done that numerous times, the 2nd
~ here in the Boqueron area! Before I
get to the actual bio bay tour, I realize now that Mark Martin and his bio bay tours on Vieques
have really spoiled us. We know that the Vieques Bio Bay is the brightest in
the world, but this one is suppose to be great!
Digression ~ We always start the Vieques Bio Bay
tours with an exciting yellow school bus
ride down a dirt road in pitch black. You
arrive at the destination, get off the bus and walk a wooden plank onto a
little party barge boat. Our guides are
always very entertaining. If you're
lucky and get Mark Martin on the tour, he not only explains all the facts of
the bio bay, he also knows all the stars and constellations. To help with sky night sky tour, he has these
really cool laser pointers. I
always thought it was better than a trip to a planetarium! All
that entertainment and the part of the bio bay tour we go for hadn't even
begun. That part of the tour is always a
phenomenal. So with these past bio bay
experiences in mind, I had high hopes. I
should have been clued in when I realized that the ticket price in Vieques is
like $30 and the ticket price here is $8 ~
You can imagine the difference in the experience.
Jay had called and made our reservations. He had gotten general directions to our
location. He was told the tour starts at
8pm. After checking the map, we decided
we have to leave by 7 the latest to get there.
We left at 7:15.... (it takes a while to get everyone moving in the same
direction). About 7:40 when we realized
we didn't have exact directions and were kind of going in circles around the
general area that the boat was to be in, we decided to call for exact
directions. Not bad, we were actually
very close! Got there in 5
minutes. Time to spare, bought our
tickets and got on line all by 7:55. ...and we waited... and waited and
waited. Not sure for what. Oh yeah the actual tickets say the tour
starts at 8:30pm..... 8:40 they let us
on the boat. No crew, no captain, only
the guy taking the tickets.... 8:55 the captain and crew show up. The captain just made his way out of the bar
next door. No biggie....
It was a pretty big party barge. About 5 times the size of the ones in
Vieques. It is also a "glass bottom
boat". Something different. The captain turns on the music and off we
go. WAIT, MUSIC..... BLARING loud Latin
music. That wouldn't be so bad except
for the fact it was a radio station with not great reception (think crackling).....
LOUD BLARING crackling MUSIC.... Please
keep in mind, it was a beautiful star filled warm night.... we are heading out
to a bio bay tour and the music....
We get out to the bay, the deck hands jump in and start
splashing around for so you can experience the glow. It
looked pretty neat. Every once in a
while, the captain would come on the loud speaker to share some information....
in Spanish. That's alright, we are in
Puerto Rico, that wasn't the unbelievable part, the unbelievable part was that
he didn't turn the radio station down, or off when he spoke. When the guys boarded the boat from the
water, they tossed what they called a "jelly fish" up on deck. They just happened to throw it where I was
standing. I don't think it was a
"jelly fish" but more like a sponge that they use to show folks the
dynoflagilates. That was the
tour. Over. Back
to the dock.
The stars out there on the dark dark bay were
spectacular. Headmaster Hendershott
taught us in class the day before that there are 200,000,000 stars in the Milky
Way. I think we saw them all. The girls enjoyed it. I guess if you've never been on the Vieques
tour, it would have been ~ maybe
impressive? ~ I don't know. So like I said earlier, I should have
expected it for an $8 ~ 45 minute boat ride. If you ever get the opportunity to come to
Puerto Rico, I recommend making the trip to Vieques and taking Mark Martin's
Bio Bay tour!
Jay and I decided we would try to make the sunrise on Thursday. We needed to be up by 5:30 to get to the Salt
Flats.
Thursday ~ March 12, 2015
Didn't happen. We
woke up at 6:30am. Sun was already in
the sky. Too late, we'd try again tomorrow. Today was Sean and the girls last day. They needed to leave tonight by 6 or 7 to
drive around the other side of the Island (through Ponce) to San Juan to catch
their red eye flight home.
We were all up and ready early enough to hit the beach. We made our way to the beach at the state park. Jay, Tracy and I tumbled upon it last year
and really loved it, so we thought we'd try it again. It
was just as beautiful today as it was last year.
I am very impressed with what we saw. On our walk down the beach we found an area
that was built for wheelchair accessibility.
We talked to the lifeguard about it, because it was
"closed". He explained that
it was full of some type of "slime", I thought algae, but Jay said it
was something else. They had to close it
down to fix. They also rent beach
wheelchairs. How stinkin' cool is
that? 10 Points Puerto Rico for
accessibility!! We had a great day at
the beach.
Kosti wanted oysters today, off to Gallaways where there's an oyster shack
across the street. He was in his glory,
4 dozen oysters later. After our meal
we headed home for Sean and the girls to get ready to begin their journey home.
Whew.... up to date!
Two more days here, then the boys leave.
Jay and I are here with Mom until Wednesday. Let's hope Spring follows us!
I am missing my little red Rose, but know she is in great hands.... and
loving the time she
is spending with Charles Barkley!
Friday the 13th On the Beautiful Island of Puerto Rico!
Sean and the girls
pulled out last night about 7. They
headed towards Ponce and then to San Juan.
They had a 12:30am flight to JFK, then a 4 hour layover. Long journey home....
Jay and I did get up this morning at 5am to go chase the sunrise. I love this man. No, I mean it, I really really love him. Everything he does, he does it to make me
happy. In turn I want to make him happy
and we end up with one big love fest! Up
and off we were to the salt flats. We
made it there before the sun. I have so
much respect for landscape photographers and might I add, I loved playing with
the light and chasing the sun, bending, twisting, moving to get just the right
angle. I is amazing how just one slight
move right or left the whole image changes.
I will do a whole post of images when we get home, until then, believe
me there are some beautiful ones in there.
On our way home we stopped to pick up some breakfast, and
headed home to the boys.
Everyone had to much sun yesterday, so it was a good day to
explore. We took the boys out to see the
Krazy Fish place and then North and a day of turning down roads we have never
seen. We had simple goals for our trip
of the day.... find jewelry for Kosti, lunch and explore some new roads. We stopped in Rincon for lunch at the Harbor
View. It was a cute little surfer hang
out. At laaaaassssssttttttt...... a great salad! Reader/traveler to PR take note, Rincon
Harbor View Restaurant makes a good Cesar salad with chicken. Lunch was good, off to find jewelry.....
Found a little, I mean little jewelry shop in the village. Kosti did find a bracelet he liked. I on the other hand found nothing. I am a jewelry snob, it's hard to please me
when it comes to jewelry......
In our exploration with
Kosti navigating we ended up at Tres Brother's Beach. Unbelievable! Unbelievable. Miles and miles of un disturbed, beautiful
beach.... Mile and miles...... On our
trip home, it started to rain, made it back to the condo and now, in the home
stretch.
This will be my last post until we get home to
Rochester. Tracy and Kosti are heading
back tomorrow and Jay and I will be with Mom for a few more days. Tracy is taking his hot spot, (imagine that)
and at Mom's we are off the grid.... Jay
has promised we would do some landscape exploring while we're at Mom's.
It has been a good, but fast time together. Another yr down.... I'm sure there will be
getting home stories for me to add next week, there always is. For now
~ we're all going to be together.
Janet
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