Where is everybody?

Slept in today, late start.  I'm almost beginning to think this is something that happens when  you visit Vieques as much as we do. No need to rush, either that or our clock had officially been set to "island time."  Limited  options to  satisfy  our craving for  white sand,  Caracas or Pata Prieta.  I assumed, given the beach closures, that Caracas would be wall to wall people,  but that ended up not being the case. In fact, we were really surprised at how few people were on the beach?  From what I had read on TA and Facebook, Sun bay, Media Luna and Navio were all covered in "stinky" sea weed.  The official recommendation was to NOT go to those beaches. Seeing how many people were on Caracas kinda  confirmed our unscientific assessment that the island was not very busy at all right now.



Set up the cabana and just "chill-axed" all day. We wished we had taken the noodles with us since the water was so calm. Had a number of people comment on the cabana and how kewl they thought it was. Clouds moved in after a couple of hours and it was sort of a grey day.

In other news I've learned a bit more about the Chikungunya virus that's in the Caribbean, including Vieques. It seems that it's much more prevalent on the north shore and there have been enough cases now that it can't really be ignored. The owner of the house we're staying at advised us to use some sort of mosquito repellent. People who are planning on traveling to Vieques should be aware that it's a possibility.

People who contract Chikungunya have joint swelling and pain, fever, headache and rash for about a week, though some symptoms last months or years in some patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the disease generally isn't fatal, more than 100 people have died in the Western Hemisphere since December, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Treatment includes hydration, rest and medicine that reduces fever or pain such ibuprofen or acetaminophen.

Closed down Caracus. The water was really warm. On the way back to the house we decided to stop by Lazy Jacks, a place we hadn't been to in a while. I had a craving for a meat lovers pizza. The only thing at Lazy Jacks that's changed since we first visited it years ago is that Brad is not behind the bar serving us drinks. We asked about him and were told he had some serious health issues and had to go back to Ohio. I had spoken with him, a few years ago, about the island and living on it. In that conversation he mentioned that his mother was worried for his health and the amount of drinking he was doing.  She's now taking care of him and I was told he's doing much better.

  The Meat Lovers pizza was just as fabulous as the last time we had it:

We each had a couple Medallas to go along with. The Malecon was eerily quiet. Even Lazy Jacks was much more sedate than we seen it in the past. I took a quick video of it:

I'm thinking of adding a DIY section to the blog because I always end up fixing one thing or another at each of the houses we stay at. This time it was the bathroom door. It would only shut part way and because of the location of the toilet, it really didn't give a person much privacy. So, first order of business was to secure the necessary tools and materials to complete the project. With a little digging I found what I needed:

No, I didn't concoct some crazy putty or adhesive out of the tuna lunch kit. It was the cardboard that I needed. The idea behind fixing doors that won't close properly is to shim them out, or in or even back and forth via the hinges. 

First thing you need to do is ascertain if you have enough room inside the jamb to move the door in the desired direction to solve your problem. What I needed to do is to raise the latch side of the door so it wouldn't scrap the tile. This door had been scraping the tile for some time because it was permanently damaged. I put a yellow line showing the damage to the tile:

I looked at the top of the door and how much room there was between it and the top jamb:

You can see how much room there is up there to work with.  So the way you raise this door in order for it not to be dragging on the bottom is to take the bottom hinge and shim it out. Sometimes, if you have to move it way out,  you'll need to shim the middle hinge about half as much as the bottom. I didn't have to for this door. I cut the tuna packaging into pieces about the size of the hinge plate. Then I took out  the screws (of which there were only 2 instead of three and they were in really bad shape). I used the duck tape to secure  pieces of cardboard behind the hinge to move the door up and away from the tile. Here's a shot of the hinge:

The right side of the hinge is on the door, the left, missing the bottom screw, is on the jamb. You can see how it's sticking out past the jamb. That's the amount I needed to move the door in order to clear the tile. Here's a shot of the hinge from inside the bathroom:

You can see the duck tape behind the hinge plate and the jamb.

So that's all it takes to fix a door that won't shut. A little cardboard, duck tape and a screwdriver. Now the bathroom door shuts properly and my wife has a little privacy in the powder room.

:-)