12 pounds of pasta and counting...

Sent from my iPhone.

Best snorkeling in a week!

Sent from my iPhone. Today was absolutely spectacular in the water - it's back to being
beautifully clear, and the current's very slight. I'm guessing
visibility was around 50 feet today... Enough that you had to actually
SWIM to get to the next fun-looking reef you spied!

Low tide

Sent from my iPhone. Is quickly becoming my favorite time of day. Not only is the
snorkeling much better, it's a joy to fin all the critters left behind
and in tidal pools. These are little mussels - love the patterns!

The best part of the day!

Sent from my iPhone. Picking up my boy from work! Just like back in the good ole Comair
days - still working out of a trailer. Ahh, the luxuries of a life in
aviation.

Borinquen lighthouse ruins

Sent from my iPhone. This is one of my favorite places in Aguadilla. This picture was shot
through a hole in the wall of what's left of the old Borinquen
lighthouse - a hurricane in 1918 was responsible for it's demise.
Today, the sun was wrong to take a good picture of the ruins, but
there will be many more to come!

I just love the blue of the water...

Todays challenge

Ok. So. This morning was all about moving. AGAIN. Even though
technically the house is ours tomorrow, and even though we scheduled
the movers to come tomorrow, seems as though 1 May, in "PR time" is
also synonomous with "how 'bout next Tuesday?" so... Not wanting to
spend close to a week without a bed, furniture, or cookware, we
extended our stay and we're back in the splendid white and glass
house we started out in. So, that made 8 moves in a month. Somewhere
around move #4, this particular piece of paper got lost. Finally dug
it up today, and now the magic trick is to somehow turn this piece of
paper into electricity in our new house. Somehow, I'm guessing that
i'll still be doing this next week. I guarantee there are 2 more forms
and exact change that I'm missing.

Mom, this one's for you!

The spiders really do come in larger sizes down here. But instead of
having two sets of really long front legs, these guys always hang out
in a perfect X. All the same, if one of these fell in me, I'm sure the
result would be no different from what you witnessed 30 years ago!

In Rincon they're walking the nose...

We went to Rincon yesterday - immortalized by the Beach Boys' song.
This sign cracked me up. I'm not sure but I think it means "caution -
runaway surfers"

We had a nice time in rincon, but it was gringo central, no doubt
about that.

Banyan tree house

We left it still standing...

Banyan tree house

Tree house

This Is probably the best tree house I've seen! It's built in a huge
sprawling banyan tree

Sunsets are really something else...

...and Steve really got the wave!

Get the waves!!

Steve had been chiding me because I kept missing pictures of the waves
breaking over the rocks.... I got this one!

Catching up from the weekend

We took about a five mile walk on the beach one afternoon - it was
going to be a quick one, but as soon as you get around one point,
there's always another point that looks just so enticing...

Aguadilla airport

Had to go pick up some touristy maps today, and the visitors center is
in the airport. Since I was going that way, thought I'd take a
picture...

Surfing contest

All week people have been dribbling in town for the eastern surfing
championships - today was the first day and I went to check it out.
Since I had no idea what to expect in terms of crowds or security, I
didn't take anything other than my phone with me, so as a result,
this is about the best photo I could muster up. Surprisingly, there
weren't a lot of people there, but I think attendance will increase as
the week goes on. It's also primarily a Jr. Event, so lots of little
niños in the water. The family staying in the apt above us are from
Nags Head and their 10 year old is surfing on Friday - I'll go out to
cheer him on. They have been a delight - the kids are tickled to death
to snorkel here and have been a hoot chasing crabs and fish.

My favorite surf shot

Somehow, this one dropped off the prior surf shot post, and it's my favorite. I love the motion of the water!

Middles Beach

These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago, but I'm just now getting them off my camera. This beach is called Middles, and it's about a 5 minute drive up across the northern coast from where we're staying. I got here at low tide, and I had an absolute ball playing in the tidal pools. The water was so warm it felt like a bath. The first two pictures were taken from the tidal pools, with me crouching down as far as I could get without ACTUALLY taking a bath (with camera) in the water. I love the color of the breaking waves in the second picture, and that's pretty much exactly the color of the waves when the sun hits them just right.

Incidentally, this is also the beach that I went to with one of my buddies when I was being "taught" how to drive a front-wheel drive car in the sand. This is also where we were stuck for close to 2 hours in the broiling midday sun, trying to lay palm leaves, break apart palettes, and gather found wood to get the car, buried to the front bumper in sand, back out on the road. It worked, I now know exactly how NOT to drive in the sand. I also know that using lengths of nylon cord, rope, and (yes) electrical wire braided together, and with the help of two unbelievably kind (non-english speaking) locals, you can use enough hand gestures to figure out how to tow a car out of the sand!