Spent the day on La Chiva, turnout #7. There's this really nice spot with two palms that you can hang out under. Clean area with little to no sand burrs. Here's a better shot of it with Lorrie sitting out front:
Surf has calmed down considerably. We still haven't done any snorkeling this trip yet. I really think the novelty is wearing on us a little, that or we're just lazy. Probably not even 50 people on La Chiva today. Really different than the past few years. Even Michelle, at the Sol Food truck, commented on how things never really got started this season. The truck is only open on Friday, Saturday and Sundays because of the slower traffic.
A few people who did make it are David and Andrea. We got to spend some time with them on La Chiva. They're friends with Owen and Vanessa (the parents of the little guy sailing his toy boat). The 6 of us got to swap Vieques stories and visit. Lorrie was a trooper and drove to the Sol Food truck for everyone. This is the only time she ever drives on Vieques, the rest of it is up to me. We also ran into Bill and Joy who've been coming to Vieques since early 2000. We share a common thread in that they're also concerned about the trash on Vieques, so much so that Bill made a deal with one of the local baseball teams. If the local people could convince the young players to pick up the trash (especially the plastic) along the roads, he would buy each one of them new baseball mitts. There was a certain threshold, in pounds of plastic, I believe that they had to reach. They called his bet and he bought $700 worth of new baseball gear for the team. How about that! Really great people who also love Vieques as much as we do.
Today was forecast for a 60% chance of rain. Here's a shot of how the day looked:
The police presence we noticed in November has subsided, or maybe disappeared. I've not seen any officers on the beaches, other than one guy on an ATV a number of days ago. Could be a budgetary issue, I don't really know. Speaking of budgets, I ran into this article on the NYTimes yesterday that talks about the tremendous problems facing Puerto Rico. It's an interesting read, but I warn you it's not pretty.
We stayed on La Chiva until sunset and as you can see it was packed.
:-)
We arrive in about a week for our first visit to Vieques. Your comprehensive weather reports and supporting photography are most enjoyable and entertaining!
ReplyDeleteGreg
Las Vacas Bravas de Wisconsin
Glad your enjoying our ramblings Greg. So many times I see people on TripAdvisor sooo worried about the weather because it's forecast for 40 or 60% chance of rain. Winter months in Vieques it's not going to rain all day long, maybe in November, but not Jan thru March.
ReplyDeleteHi Curt and Lorrie. Thanks for the "After the mortgage" blogsite. We will definitely use the Homeaway Houses to rent, VT houses to rent, and VRBO house to rent links for our next visit to Vieques. Your photo’s are excellent, no need to send any of mine. Deb and Dan from MN.
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