Category Archives: CARIBBEAN

When it Really is a Jungle…

“It’s a jungle out there” has grown cliched to the point that the phrase almost always brings to mind a complex urban landscape. But sometimes…

It really is a jungle.

Our views from Yokahu Tower extended more than ten miles, out to Luquillo, Fajardo and San Juan and into the North Atlantic waters that border Puerto Rico’s northern shores.

 

To the west, Los Picachos and Pico de El Yunque rose from amongst the 240 known plant species native to El Yunque National Forest. Far to the east, beyond our sight but visible from El Yunque Peak on the clearest of days: the Virgin Islands.

 

As we breathed it all in I remembered swimming, years before, in the seas of St John and Virgin Gorda, only vaguely aware that Puerto Rico was just over there… to the west. Now I stood on Puerto Rico’s main island knowing that I’d once chased eagle rays through waters just over there… to the east. As my brain slowly arranged it all in geographical order, it struck me that whether surveying jungle, ocean or mountain, a little on-the-spot perspective is more effective than any map in connecting them all across one beautiful and ever intriguing planet.

 

Family Vacation on raveable

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Perils of Paradise

Window decals are marginally effective in preventing birds from attempting a fly-through.  I liked the humor in the “Beware Paradise” sticker adhered to the sliding balcony door in our room at the Gran Melia in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.   I don’t know how many birds it has saved, but hopefully the warning has prevented vacationers from succumbing to the hazards of Paradise.

Hazards?  Well, at a resort like the Gran Melia in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, these hazards might easily include an uneven sunscreen application and brain freeze from slurping your frozen daiquiri too quickly. But, I’d rather consider more natural perils awaiting the unwary traveler:


Like bumping into a palm tree,

 

 

 

 

while stumbling over one of these beached coconuts.

 

 

 

 

Or the paradisaical peril of wasting your time by following a hermit crab wherever it wishes to go

while watching egrets fly to parts unknown…

While losing yourself completely -for a few moments at least, on a wander down a deserted beach…

 

Updated from September 13, 2010.
Family Vacation on raveable

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Sea Glass on Sun Bay

Sun Bay didn’t get a lot of our time.  Nothing against the sand on that beach —the shores of Isla de Vieques are simply alternate slices of heaven. We had found more private digs on Silver Beach around the corner but appreciated Sun Bay’s alternate view of the little island we swam to in pursuit of a sea turtle.

Sun Bay was the meeting point for our kayak/swim tour of Bioluminescent Bay (more on that later).  More significantly, it was the best beach we found for collecting sea glass.

Sea glass?  It’s basically recycled garbage, but this is a truly artistic reprocessing.  During a stay at Cape Cod, I found publicity for a sea glass festival in Hyannis, Massachusetts.  And with a couple of Google clicks, I discovered that the annual festival is not an isolated incident but a major hobby and business for many ocean lovers. The “Shard of the Year” fetches $1000 at the North American Sea Glass Festival.

Sea glass is ocean burnished bottle fragments and chips of glass. Bottle stoppers, marbles, channel markers, thimbles —tossed and tumbled by the ocean until finally washed up as smooth startling bits of color amidst seaweed and shells at water’s edge.  I’ve found them along the shores of disparate seas.  On beaches in Cape Cod, Bermuda, Hawaii, St John, Puerto Rico, Spain and… Vieques.  My aunt’s artful scatter of the glass over a patio table a few years ago  breathed inspiration to me. And so, I gathered my own colorful treasures at Sun Bay.

At Sun Bay we had to get choosy, tossing the similar in favor of the unusual. So much beautiful glass, so little space in our moderately sized hands. At home we arranged the bits of vibrant glass amongst seashells, coral and sand in sea gardens we create in glass bowls to commemorate beach trips.

And with a glance at the glass, I’m back on the beach…

Family Vacation on raveable

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