On the beach.....

I had commented yesterday about all the habitat that was destroyed by the "beach cleanup" this past year. It was the reason the beaches were closed beyond Pata Prieta. Supposedly a contractor was brought in to search and remove ordinances, aka bombs, that might be left. I know nothing about bomb removal but the end result looks as if they just blew them all up.




So...that's that, not much more to say other than it looks a mess. Mother nature will work her magic and maybe finally get to reclaim what was taken for a long time. I hope that the government/military is finally finished playing god in this little part of the planet.

La Plata was perfect today and contrary to the drive in, not much has changed. Even Jorge was present, twice. He had two tours today.




The beach topped out at 18 people. Met Leah from Atlanta along with her husband Greg. Her Aunt and Uncle were also along. They're veteran Vieques vacationers and know Lorrie and I via the blog. Leah is also a Tequila connoisseur, well at least this trip she said she was. Not a bad area of study I would think.

We started the day with Tai Chi, Lorrie did yoga afterwards. We were late getting to La Plata and were suppose to met Judy and Andre over at the gallery, sometime around 9am. Andre was sure to point out that we were late and didn't make it over as was agreed.  I promised we would be early on Wednesday, but I just got a message from Joy that they are going to the fish market in the morning and are wanting us to join. Andre will be hunting me down in Isabel if I'm late again.

Well I just got a phone message from Bill and we're meeting at Roy's for coffee at 9am and then to the fish market at 10am. Looks like we're going to be late again tomorrow. Maybe I could get Andre a nice big lobster as a peace offering? We go out to Coqui Fire with Judy and Andre on Thurday, he'll probably want a guarantee in writing that  I won't be late after tomorrow.

Speaking of food, and since  that's suppose to be the theme for this trip, I had a lentil burger for an "after Tai chi" snack, Everything for these were bought yesterday during provision shopping. It costs us about $3 to make 6 of them. Topped it off with some Coqui Fire Pina Colada sauce. I forgot to bring the avacodo that was to go on top:

Weather forecast for the day was calling for a 35% chance of rain. Below is what that looks like:

"The sky is the daily bread for the eyes" ~ Emmerson

One can't help but to look up and marvel at the blue sky, especially while down here in the Caribbean.  It becomes as much a part of your day as breathing. There's a calming effect, akin to what some east Asian religions call samahdi. All of us have had that happen. You step outside on a beautiful blue sky day and look up and take it all in. One-pointedness, equanimity, happiness. A zen like quality.

Not everyone is willing to let it happen. Either by being programmed by society or just the stress of life itself. When people do "let their guard down", it's great. Judy and Andre get it, so do Leah and Greg, who we spent time talking with today.

So here's a little video of us all, taking our daily bread via the blue sky in Vieques:



:-)

Dinner last night was Grouper with honey/ginger/cumin glaze. It was topped with another type of mango salsa. This one had capers, red peppers, red onion, two limes and a jalapeno with it.  This was better than the one last night. We had a spinach salad with grapes, pears,  with a dijohn apple cider vinegar dressing.

Now off to the fish market this morning with Bill and Joy. Then out to La Plata.

Provisions and Mojo chicken......

Spent the day on La Plata, the full day. First order of business set up the cabana. We  had replaced one of the poles. Somehow I managed to lose one of the Teflon thing-a-ma-jigs that's inside and helps the telescoping lock, lock. Other than that it's the same old ropes and everything else.

The wind was strong and constant but the cabana held up just fine. A familiar site on the beaches is a people showing up with a beach umbrella. They unfold the thing before the pole is even set in the sand then  it flips wrong side out. This also happens a lot even when the pole is set/screwed into the sand. The below video is why we ended up building the cabanas we use on Vieques:

This young guy, obviously frustrated, told me he must have gotten the worst beach umbrella made. We offered our cabana if they got too hot or too much sun.

La Plata was just as gorgeous as ever. Not much had changed and we're thankful for that, because there's a lot that has changed driving into Chiva and La Plata. There's been enormous habitat destruction along Chiva and on the road into La Plata. That sort of jungle feel, especially on the drive into La Plata is gone. It feels more like a savanna now.  They widened the road going into La Plata. I'll have to get video of it this week.

Like I said, La Plata beach itself hasn't changed much.

The gallery is up and ready for business. I, of course, jumped right in on my curating duties.

Above is my new piece for this trip. There were lots of pieces that have been balanced for 3 years now. I remember digging this next one out of the water at least 3 years ago. It's one of Andre's favorites:

Counted 24 people on La Plata at the high point, about average for peak season. We ended up leaving earlier than we normally would (we feel obligated to close it down whenever we can).

So I guess it was about 4:30 when we said goodbye to our favorite beach. Our mission was provisions, our destination, wherever we could find what we needed and that could end up being as many as 7 or 8 stops.

 First stop was the vegetable museum (VM). The VM is at the intersection of 997 and 200. When you drive by you'll swear it's a tire shop, which it is, but they also sell fresh, ahem,  vegetables.  Tires and vegetables, almost like bread and butter, or fish and chips, well at least that's the way it works on Vieques. The fruits and veggies are stored in these refrigerated semi trailers that are permanently set up, sorta like a  walk in freezer/refrigerated. There are a lot of vegetables/herbs/fruits/melons inside these trucks, in varying degrees of freshness (hence the vegetable museum). 

We bought 3 mangoes,  4 avocados, 3 pears, 2 limes,  4 lemons, 2 oranges, 2 grapefruit,  package of carrots, one pineapple, 3 red onions, 2 yellow onions, 3 eggplants,  3 sweet potatoes, 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 yellow pepper,  one package of cherry tomatoes (that looked GREAT btw),  package of grapes. They've expanded the VM to an area outside the trucks that has a decent offering of can goods, spices, beer (where are you not going to find beer for sale on Vieques?) and a few other items. We picked up some cumin and chili powder and capers. Final bill was $56.

Next it was off to Morales on 200. I had remembered that they had a much better selection of asian/indian spices, plus they seem to have more meat. We found the red curry but not the green.  We even found organic honey at this store. We almost didn't find the honey. It was over near the candy bars. Honey, sweet, candy bars, sweet.  Total bill was $195. We bought too many items to list, but a few of note werer: ground beef, chicken breasts, shrimp, grouper fillets, balsamic vinegar,  red wine vinegar, oyster sauce, dijohn mustard and a bottle of Pinot Gricio.

Still on mission,  it was off to the Morales in Isabell because we still hadn't found in turmeric (it's for a tea we make each morning), plus we needed fresh cilantro.  Didn't find the turmeric (I'm thinking there's no tumeric on island) but did get 2 bunches of cilantro. Also picked up some fresh cantaloupe. We found dried black beans, which weren't at the Morales on 200. Thing is we had already bought canned Goya black beans so we didn't pick them up.  I bought 2 quarts of Hag and Dais ice cream and some more coconut water. There were a few other items but I can't remember. Total for that stop was $44.

So you want to see what $300 of provisions looks like on Vieques?

We did buy some sunscreen, salsa and corn chips, they just didn't make the pictures. With provisions secured in just three stops (there was still the Mambo, Buen Provecho and the Vieques Emporium for those really hard to find items) it was off to Beso's to get cooking.

Menu for tonight, once we finally got all the groceries put away was Mojo chicken over brown rice with a spinach avacado salad on the side. We had a Pinot Gricio for wine. 

The chicken breast we bought at Morales where huge. They were boneless and so big we only had to use one. The cost for the package was $14 but since was just used 1/4 of it, the chicken for this meal cost $3.50.

We were going to cook it on the grill but it was getting so late she just cooked it in a skillet on the stove. It had cumin, pepper and was grilled in olive oil.

While she was doing that I was cutting up one mango and the one pineapple we bought.. I absolutely love fresh mango:

She took  this and put it into a med sized pot that had olive oil, red onion, minced garlic. Once this sauteed for 10 minutes she added red wine vinegar, pineapple juice, one squeezed orange and 1/4 cup of white rum (you know, the gift we got when we arrived at Beso).  Difficult for me to say how much the mango salsa cost. It wasn't much though.  I'll be generous and say $4.

Now the salad. It was  spinach, avocado, red onion,  and sliced almond. The dressing was fresh squeezed lemon, olive oil, honey (organic), and ground pepper. 

The spinach we used cost $2 per bag and we only used 1/4 of the bag. So 50 cents for the spinach. We used 1/4 of one avocados. I think the avocado was under $2 a piece.  So maybe another 50 cents. We used maybe a dimes worth of onion. The almonds were $2 and once again we only used 1/4 of it. So another 50 cents. What is that now.....$1.50  We used 35 cents worth of honey and maybe 15 cents worth of apple cider vinegar. The olive oil we used was maybe 35 cents. Grand total on the salad $2.35 for two salads. 

The meal is up to $9.85

The rice was $1.79

The wine was $11

Total cost for our Mojo chicken /spinach salad dinner was $22.64 of which the wine was half so if you drank water you talking less that $7 per person. Not bad at all and there's left overs. 

Eating this great meal, and it was blow your socks off good, in the Caribbean with coqui frogs and ocean waves in the background......just doesn't get much better.

Who can put  a price on that?

:-)

The naked truth....

Ah yes, it's Orchid Beach 'au naturale'  number three. We got to La Plata early, had to wait on the rain  to stop. Not long after we set up we noticed another couple, we heard the car doors. They hit the beach deliberately and on a mission. They had chairs, coolers and were trailed by two dogs, but that didn't stop them from walking all the way over to the gallery. I mentioned to Lorrie that they were up to something, cause no one sets up camp over there. Sure enough it didn't take long to see, I mean REALLY see, what was going on. 

Off came the cloths and they hit the water wearing nothing but a mask and snorkel.   We were curious how they would act once more people showed up. Within a couple hours two more couples came onto the beach. Which brings up another observation. Lorrie and I have noticed how many times people walk onto the beach and just freeze, not sure what to do or where to go.  We call it the "beach coma". The naked ones, across the way, were in no way comatose. They were in and out of the water. He was parading up and down the beach in front of the gallery.  It did limit traffic over that way. No one else was going over to the gallery.

Then it happened. Lorrie saw it first, I never heard them at all. Lorrie tells me, "Look who just showed up."

I ask this officer  if I could take his picture. There were three of them, all on horseback. We knew that more officers on horseback had been added to combat the recent crime wave, but we had yet to see them in action. We really like seeing the police on horseback. For one it just fits better. Last Feb we had a guy on an ATV drive right by us on the beach when we were on La Chiva. That was kind of annoying. These guys on horseback are unobtrusive. The officers were all very nice too, real gentlemen. They were making their way down the beach when it looked like they caught sight of  what was happening across the way. They headed all the way down to the east end and  then one of them went into the water, still on horseback,  headed towards the nudists. I grabbed the binocs and watched assholes and elbows trying to get cloths back on. It was funny.

The officers didn't go all the way over to the gallery, I guess the couple getting some cloths on was enough. They left as quietly as they came, great way to move around without anyone knowing it. No car doors to be heard from them.

After about 20 minutes things were back to normal. What I mean is, the cloths came right back off.  Lorrie, I and most everyone else decided to stay on our side of the beach.

It was a beautiful day on La Plata. The water was the clearest we've seen it in two weeks.  We watched a couple storms pass by out at sea.

Cabana held up just fine in some fairly strong winds all day

We didn't  close out the beach today, still had to wash the car, inside and out, pack.  Left the beach today about 4pm and right as we were leaving this rainbow forms. It looked like it was originating right over the two nudist, by the gallery.

For some reason this old song came to mind:

Left the refuge and went to the car wash, the car was a mess. After that I suggested to Lorrie that we should stop by Mamasongas and check out the upstairs, maybe grab a burger. Lorrie agreed so that's where we headed.  Being still  early the place wasn't very busy. We got a table in the corner with plenty of shade.

There's a nice view of the street and peeks of the Atlantic.

Looking around  I could tell it would be a really fun place to spend a late night with friends.

Here's another shot of Lorrie at our corner table by a tree that overhangs.

That tree had a surprise for me when I sat back down. Lorrie noticed it first. There was this huge iguana climbing up a branch right behind my head.

Let me tell you this was one huge reptile, it was also the closest Lorrie and I had ever been to one. He didn't seem too bothered by us at all.

Lorrie and I ordered two burgers with fries. We had ice tea to drink. We would have ordered more but I didn't realize that they only took cash. We had $40 with us. The bill for the burgers was $27. Great meal and a really good price. As a matter of fact most of the entrees we saw were $10-$15.  Good food, good service and good atmosphere.  I like this place.

Back to the house to begin packing and picking things up. Been a great trip, can't wait to be back again (in 9 weeks).

Ended the day with a beautiful sunset.

I'll be uploading a video review of Colores Del Mar when we get home. The Internet connection
  is just not really fast enough here to get it done.

:-)

Hanging out....

Nothing extraordinary about the last two days, what I mean is there was no major pilgrimage to another secret island spot. We drove out to La Plata and hung out. Yoga in the morning, swim over to the gallery, a little curating where needed, then back to the cabana to enjoy what was  perfect days.

The sand is back over near the gallery, crazy I know. Didn't even take a week for it to change.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.~ Shunryu Suzuki

Met a couple from the east coast of the U.S.  and they told us it had been 10 years since they had been to Vieques. I commented that a lot has probably changed since then. They said not really, except that there a lot less trash. They said it was piled up on the roads when they were here before and they noticed how much better everything looked. They concluded that there must be a change going on with the local people regarding the care of Vieques. This was great to hear and made me think that I might be taking a myopic viewpoint on how the refuge is changing. I  guess they are trying and making progress, so I'll accept the signage and look rather at what they're trying to accomplish, helping as best as I can.  And to that point,  I did manage to gather all those plastic bottles around the point out towards Ensenada Honda.  We also made our way around towards Escondida and cleaned it up. There's one monstrous wad of blue rope that I've been looking at for a couple years now that I managed to gather into a pile, but it was too much for me to try and move by myself.

I found another one of those strange seeds that I could never learn the name of or even what it was. The first one I found looked like a plastic hamburger or something. Extremely hard and even felt like plastic, actually looked man made.

 I found out what it is called. Hamburger seed, how about that!

Here's some info from Wikipedia:

Mucuna is a genus of around 100 accepted species of climbing vines and shrubs of the family Fabaceae, found worldwide in the woodlands of tropical areas.
The leaves are 3-palmate, alternate or spiraled, and the flowers are pea-like but larger, with distinctive curved petals, and occurring in racemes. Like other legumes, Mucuna plants bear pods. They are generally bat-pollinated and produce seeds that are buoyant sea-beans. These have a characteristic three-layered appearance, appearing like the eyes of a large mammal in some species and like a hamburger in others (most notably M. sloanei) and giving rise to common names like deer-eye beans, ox-eye beans or hamburger seed.

Speaking of seeds, the nickernuts pods are all green and spiny now. I learned about them a few years ago when we saw a couple women collecting the seeds along the beach at La Plata. I ask what they where planning to do with them. They told me that the string them into necklaces. If I remember right we usually collect the seeds in Feb.  Here's a picture of some of the pods that are now on La Plata:

and here's some info on nickernuts:

Nickernuts or nickar nuts are smooth, shiny seeds from tropical leguminous shrubs, particularly Caesalpinia bonduc and C. major,^[1] both known by the common name warri tree. C. bonduc produces gray nickernuts, and C. major produces yellow. Accordingly, these species are locally known in the Caribbean as "grey nickers" and "yellow nickers".
The word nicker probably derives from the Dutch word "knikker", meaning clay marble.^[2]
In the Caribbean, nickernuts are used to play mancala games such as oware. The nickernut is marble-like and good for other uses, such as for jewellery; it is also sometimes ground up to make a medicinal tea.^[1]
The seeds are often found on the beach, and are also known as sea pearls^[3] or eaglestones.^[4]
Caesalpinia and Merremia seeds sometimes drift long distances. In 1693 James Wallace referred to them being often found in Orkney: "After Storms of Westerly Wind amongst the Sea-weed, they find commonly in places expos'd to the Western-Ocean these Phaseoli . . . . [F]rom the West-Indies, where they commonly grow, they may be thrown in on Ireland, the Western parts of Scotland and Orkney".^[5] In 1751 Erich Pontoppidan described one found on the coast of Norway: "It is of the size of a chestnut, obicular, yet flat, or as it were compressed on both sides. Its colour is a dark brown yet in the middle, at the junction of the shells, it is varied with a circle of shining-black, and close by that another of a lively red, which have a very pretty effect".^[6] They were known as 'sea beans' in Scandinavia, where one has been found fossilised in a Swedish bog,^[7] and 'Molucca beans' in the Hebrides, where a visitor to Islay in 1772 wrote of them as seeds of "Dolichos wrens, Guilamdina Bonduc, G. Bonducetta, and mimosa scandens . . . natives of Jamaica".^[8] The 1797 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica said that they were used only for "the making of snuff-boxes out of them";^[9] however, there is a long tradition of using them as amulets for good luck,^[2] banishment of ill luck^[10] or to ease childbirth.^[11]

Found this strange looking yellow fruit on a vine. Don't have any idea what it is:

Update ------------------------------------------------------

I have since learned, from the help of an anonymous commenter here on the blog, that this is called Cundeamor or bitter melon. After doing a little digging I came upon this article about some research in to bitter melon:

Bitter melon juice may be efficacious against pancreatic cancer, according to the results of in vitro and animal studies conducted at the University of Colorado.¹
Although no clinical trials in patients with cancer have been conducted, bitter melon (Momordica charantia), which is commonly consumed in parts of Asia and Africa, has previously been shown to have activity against breast, prostate, and colon cancer cells.
In the University of Colorado studies, four pancreatic cell lines were treated with juice obtained from bitter melons purchased in a local store. A single 24-hour treatment reduced the viability of the various cell lines by 54% to 98% after 72 hours, suggesting significant, broad spectrum anti-cancer activity.
Two cell lines were tested to determine if treatment with bitter melon juice increased apoptotic cell death compared with untreated cells. Apoptosis increased from 12% to 32% in one cell line and from 11% to 34% in the other cell line.
Western blot analysis showed that bitter melon juice activated two regulators of apoptosis, caspase-3 and caspase-9, and upregulated several proapoptotic molecules in both cell lines; overall the bitter melon juice also had variable effects on several antiapoptotic molecules.
Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which is activated when cell energy is restricted, was more active in treated cells than in untreated cells, suggesting that bitter melon juice was starving them of energy.
To study the effects in vivo, the researchers next grafted human pancreatic cells from a single line to athymic nude mice and administered bitter melon juice orally for 6 weeks, with apparently positive results: at the end of the study period, xenograft volume and weight were both significantly lower in treated mice than in controls. The mice that received bitter melon juice had no weight loss and there were no apparent harmful effects on the pancreas or liver.
Apoptosis is regulated by a balance between proapoptotic and antiapoptotic molecules. Compared with tumor cells from untreated mice, tumor cells from mice given bitter melon juice showed an increase in proapoptotic proteins and a decrease in antiapoptotic proteins, supporting the results found in vitro.
The researchers' interest in the effect of bitter melon juice on pancreatic cancer was sparked by the observation that the juice has mild hypoglycemic effects and has been used in traditional medicine to treat diabetes, a disease that increases the risk for pancreatic cancer (Related: Relationship of Type 2 Diabetes and Cancer Risk). They speculated that, even in the absence of diabetes, bitter melon juice might have favorable effects on pancreatic tumors.
“Three years ago researchers showed the effect of bitter melon extract on breast cancer cells only in a Petri dish,” said Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, co-program leader of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Colorado University Cancer Center and professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Denver, CO.
“This study goes much, much further. We used the juice—people especially in Asian countries are already consuming it in quantity. We show that it affects the glucose metabolism pathway to restrict energy and kill pancreatic cancer cells.”

full article here Chemotherapy Advisor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Portia trees are in bloom along the beach, but I think they bloom all the time because I remember seeing this one blooming in Feb.

Lazy days just hanging out watching the shadows get long and everything turn that golden color.

Thinking about either going to Playa Grande tomorrow or hiking east of Playa Voltia to what I believe is/was called Purple beach, which rumor has is supposed to be open sometime in 2015.

:-)

Last day.....

We left Casa La Vista very early today...needed to make the most of our last day on the island. I also had some unfinished business to attend to. I still need to plant the cotton seeds for Jennifer. So on the way to Playa la Plata, actually right before the road Y's (where you can head to Escondida or Playa la Plata) I planted the cotton seeds.

I put four rocks around where I planted the seeds Jennifer.

and I put a green rope above were I planted the seeds:

We also marked one of the plants that had the cotton on it for you:

That's blue rope on that one. Then we took a picture of Lorrie in front of one of the plants for scale. They are really quite tall.

Ok..after our farming we headed on into Playa La Plata. This was the earliest we've made it to the beach this trip. It was about 8:30 when we hit the beach. We were greeted by a note from Hal and Adrienne.

It was really nice to meet them too. We've met so many wonderful people  on this trip.  Lorrie and I were talking last night about how we feel this has been our best trip of all! Imagine that, after 6 trips, it just keeps getting better.


So..after admiring the nice note in the sand from  Hal and Adrienne, Lorrie was off on her morning meditative walk. I just hung out at the cabana. Next was our morning yoga, so nice to do that when you have the beach to yourselves. Then we did the swim over to the gallery. I took a few pictures of the place in the morning sun:



The picture to the right is the one I took this year. The one above is the one I took a year ago.  Kinda kewl to see that it's almost the same..but not quite. 
 
 
 

 
 
Then it was back to our cabana to just" chill-ax", to quote our daughter. Didn't take long for Judy and Andre to show up. They ask us "What happened to you guys after the  opening in Isabel?". We told them about Cnuc being full and that we ended up going to Veritas. They told us that they ended up going to El Patio and thought that the meal was over-priced.


After that Lorrie and I watched the beach fill up. Really didn't take long either. We counted 32 at the high point.  Sometime before noon a couple showed up by our cabana. The female of the couple walked up to Lorrie and ask if she was "Lorrie from Indiana". Yep, Lorrie replied. Seems that Hal and Adrienne had told them about the kayaking and about us.  They were also having Donty deliver a kayak this afternoon.  We watched them paddle out into Ensenada Honda.

Last days on the beach are tough. You hate to do much of anything...seems there's  a lot more of just trying to sit back and take as much of it in as possible. We were hoping that towards the end of the day the beach would empty and Lorrie and I could close it out, one last time. Things did begin to thin out, as the sun dropped further into the horizon. Long before the last visitors left, Andre and Judy came down to say their goodbyes. What a wonderful visit we've had with them this year.  I took a picture of the two of them walking away:

I remember how pleased we were to see that yellow tee-shirt when arrived two weeks ago. I sure hope to see it again in another year.  Thank you two, for just being you.

There is a time, in the late afternoon, when things turned a beautiful golden color.  It's almost a surreal kind of light and it doesn't last long.  It was nearing that time so I ask Lorrie if she wanted to take one last walk over to the gallery. We took our time walking over, there was only one group besides us on Orchid now.  As we were walking over I ask Lorrie if we had been to any other beaches this trip? No, she told me. Other than our "no beach day" we had spent two weeks on Orchid and the novelty still hadn't worn off.  I took some more shots of the rock sculptures in the fading light. (I know your getting tired of seeing them..but it's something we really enjoy).

The sand was unmarked now, since everyone had left.

This one was my masterpiece. Lorrie and I drug it up onto the beach one day last week.  Upright it stood nearly 3 1/2 feet tall. Andre said it was his favorite.

This one was Judy's favorite. She said it looked African. When I saw it I was reminded of "Venus of Willindorf".

I sat this piece of brain coral up earlier in the week. Judy had ask me if it was mine. She was able to pick out my style.  As I was taking pictures, in the waining light, I noticed that Lorrie was missing. I turned around to find her out in the water sitting. She was sitting very still and these little purple and yellow damsel fish were all around her. The tide was exceptionally low right now and was nearly like glass. I took some shots of her out in the water sitting.

Even though we hated to, it was nearly time to leave. The no-see-ums were just beginning their evening feed. The good thing though was that the place was ours, everyone had left.  After we packed up our stuff in the Jeep,  Lorrie and I had one last drink while the gallery on the far shore was ablaze  in the golden light. I managed to catch of shot of it.

See ya in about 8 months Vieques

:-)