Different perspective......

What a full day, wow. I got up early and took a walk to watch the sunrise. How often do we take the time to do that? Actually make a point to watch the sun rise. Not see a sunrise on the way to work or catch a glimpse of one. To make the effort to watch it happen. To a lot of people this would seem a tedious task to undertake. To me it was anything but tedious and a privilege.

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."
-  Marcus Aurelius




Something special, a gift that is given to all of us every single day, but few if any (myself included) care to take notice of. A different perspective.  I do think the words of the song, although about Syd Barrett, could just as easily apply to any of us caught up in chasing the ghost, which is life, or what we think is life. Sorry, nearing the end of our trip so I get philosophical, but humor me and think about it for a moment. The words of the song are haunting and speak to the trade offs we make and how it limits our perspective and the pain it causes, pain we are not even aware of.

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year.
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Ah, I love that song. I suppose as we're landing in Indianapolis I need to play "Welcome to the machine."

We have been stopping by the Mambo most every morning on our way to the refuge. Each morning we buy a 12 pack of Medallas and 2 bags of ice. Over the course of the last week I have been practicing my Spanish with the young women who has been checking us out. Today she rewarded me with a piece of candy for my "Dos bolsas de heilos." Lorrie just laughed.

Today we were the FIRST ones on La Plata. Beat Judy and Andre by about 5 minutes. Finally.


 We always and I mean always park at spot 25.

Today I suggested to Lorrie that we maybe park at a different spot. She looked at me odd and said "but there's no one here and OUR spot is open?" I told her I realized that but maybe we could try something new? She agreed. Something new amounted to driving down to the next spot and parking. It also meant setting up the cabana in a new area, well maybe 75 feet further east down the beach from our "old" spot. Not a mammoth change, like going to a new island or something.   As we were unloading Andre and Judy drove by. Andre later told me that when they drove by he told Judy that there's no way that was Curt's jeep. He would never leave his spot. 

Ha...fooled him. Part of the reason for the change was because of Andre. He's always got some new twist on something to share with me. Yesterday he shared this picture below. He ask me, before he showed it to me, to glance at it quickly and  tell him which face looked happier.  So look at the two faces below and decide which one looks the happiest to you. 

Chances are the face your going to pick is going to be the one on the right. The fact is that they're both the same face, one's just a mirror image of the other one. Why do we tend to pick the right one? Because not only do we read left to right, we look at things left to right! Andre called it our perspective. We need to change our perspective to see things fresh or maybe to even see things as they are. 

So moving parking spots was my way of changing things up, my perspective. Andre was caught off guard, his perspective was changed. Ha...

I believe it was maybe 9:15am. Set the cabana up, did some Tai Chi and yoga and then got ready to swim over to the gallery with Judy and Andre. It was then that I really noticed the skyline. Rain, coming right at us.

It really began raining hard, but the four of us took to the water and made our way over to the gallery. Curating the pieces is a morning ritual for us all. Some people may find it odd or not even see the reasoning in it, but it's all about perspective, now isn't it?

By the time we were finished over at the gallery the rain had stopped and it looked as though the weather gods were pleased and decided to reward us all with some gorgeous blue sky. When I say gorgeous I mean it. Today was one of those absolutely perfect days on Vieqeus.  Check out this panaromic video shot of La Plata, from left to right of course. You can see our cabana if you look hard. Also, the gallery and towards the end you can see the waves breaking out at Limon Reef. I shot the video in high definition, if you've got the bandwidth to run it check it out.:

Like I said a perfect day. Sometime around noon I took a walk up over the rocks towards Escondida and snapped some pictures. Many of these vistas I have seen numerous times, but they never get old.

I love the tenacity of the mangrove. Any little foot hold is all they need.

The yellow arrow is our cabana. They beach was empty. As a matter of fact it peaked today at 11 people. This reminded us from years ago. Strange for the peak of season. 

That's the gallery just right of center is the far distance.

This shot was taken from an even higher vantage point, you can still see the cabana. 

I love the color of the rocks around towards Escondida. That powder blue and salmon hue on the stones doesn't look real.

When I returned from my photo excursion I ask Lorrie if she wanted to walk over to Escondida, via the dirt road, still trying to change perspective. She liked the idea and off we went. 

 It's a different vantage point, walking instead of driving. You miss some things driving. Like  actually how huge the cacti are:

Escondida is hit or miss, most times it's a miss. It tends to be covered in seaweed a lot. When we have, hit it right, it's  really nice and I found it a good beach to snorkel, especially to the right as your facing the ocean. 

Today was one of those days when Escondida was a hit, and there wasn't a soul around.

We didn't take a picture, but the palm that had gotten uprooted from hurricane Thomas a few years ago and that I re-planted had really grown. It's a solid palm now. 

It was so nice that we took a swim for an hour or so. 

Then it was back to La Plata. 

and turn-out #26

There's a nice vista of La Plata as your coming through the sea grapes. 

We couldn't close down La Plata today. We needed to get into Esperanza for the show at the historical trust. Larry Mowbray was showing his late wife's (Clare, who passed away last year) under water photos and I also wanted to meet Larry.

Somehow we got the times mixed up and thought the show was from 4 to 6, instead it started at 6. We decided to hang out at Duffys, hadn't done that in a long time and it was nice to watch things along the Malecon;

We had 2 rum punches, suppose to be the best on the island (seems I hear that every time we order Rum Punch). Ended up meeting with Marilyn. I walked up behind her and gave her a hug. She turned around, taken back and said "what are you doing here?" I said "Why Marilyn, we do spend a month here each year."  We had just stayed at her place in November and had also been there last June. She was also going to the trust for the show. I bought her a rum punch and as her to join Lorrie and I.

There were a lot of people at the showing. Some of which we knew and some  we met for the first time.  Good wine and finger foods. 

The pictures are breath taking. She managed to photo things I didn't even realize were in the waters around Vieques. That large print of the sergeant majors in the above photo we bought. 

Ended up buying another but I didn't get a shot of it. Clare had a remarkable perspective and an ability to capture and share with others, what many of us never get to see. I never got the chance to meet her, but we now own two of her photos. It was a pleasure to meet Larry and I now have a new appreciation for the waters around Vieqeus.

Tomorrow there's a gallery opening in Isabel. We're suppose to meet some people for it, plus have dinner afterwards. Time is flying by so fast.

La Plata in the morning, might even try a different parking spot, who knows.

Great day and we enjoyed every molecule of it.


:-)