Just like old times....

Perfect, perfect, perfect.  Got to La Plata early, no one else around. Spent the whole day there and only had a couple visitors. What a great day.

Met Adam from New Jersey. He came up to Lorrie and I and said he was an avid reader of our blog. It's great meeting people who enjoy what we try to share about Vieques. Adam encouraged Lorrie and I to take up diving. He's been all over diving, even cave diving. Sounds like one for the bucket list.

First I would like to post another picture of the beach over near the rock gallery. Someone had commented that they thought it might be the tide. We've noticed the tide changes on La Plata and how the water line changes and different things become  exposed, but this is a different change. That sand I was talking about is gone. I think you can see it better in this picture:

 

We used to walk in sand along this stretch towards the gallery.  It's interesting to see.

 

Allen (our property manager) had recommended to Lorrie and I that we purchase some diving boots if we planned on hiking to jumping rock. Following his advise we purchased some from Blackbeards. This is what we bought:

 

 

These things are great and I wish we had got some a long time ago! Lorrie and I took them on a trial run today. We hiked around the eastern edge of La Plata around towards Ensenada Honda. I took some pictures along the way:

 

 

You can see that Lorrie has them on. They work great walking around on rocks, plus you get NO sand inside because of the zip up sides.

We would go out on these outcroppings of rocks and let the waves and foam splash up on us.

One of downfalls of exploring new areas or at least areas we haven't been in for a long time, is all the trash we find,  especially plastic water bottles. People don't realize just how many of these are littering our oceans. It's one of the reason's I DON'T BUY water. It's such a simple change that would make a huge difference.

 

Most every crevice  along the beach is full of these. In just this one little wash there where 32 plastic water bottles.

 

I hated to leave this pile of plastic, but I had no way of taking it back. We should have brought some sort of bag. And if you would be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to provide you with this little factoid:

 

The Pacific Institute estimates that in 2006:

• Producing the bottles for American consumption required the equivalent of more than
  17 million barrels of oil, not including the energy for transportation
• Bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide
• It took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water

And we're talking about water here people.  I see this as one of the grandest ruses ever ginned up by big business. Get a re-usable container. Save yourself some bucks and maybe make a difference on the planet. I take a mason jar to work full of tea or water. Everyone sucking on their soda's in plastic bottles look at me like I'm a freak or something. A lot of guys think I've got moonshine or facsimile.

Sorry for taking off on that tangent.

There were lots of cacti tucked between little cracks in the rocks. Amazing that they can live in these places.

Saw more of this fracture pattern in the rock. Would love to know more about this and what caused it?

Last thing we did today was to redo the gallery.  Just couldn't stand the clutter. Last ones to leave the beach. Not a soul around. Seemed like old times.

 

:-)