In Search Of The Best Beach In Puerto Rico

After Carolyn flew home - she being saddled with the burden of having a real job - I stayed on for a week in Puerto Rico, ostensibly to go on a personal mission to find the best beach but really just to avoid the snow back home for another 7 days. I also was laying the foundation for a possible return to Puerto Rico in the future. Hey, it's a tough job but someone has to do it!

I found a place to stay on Craig's List. It was cheap and it was a dump. But it was at least clean, kept the rain out and there were no critters running around. Besides, I wasn't there to spend time in the room. I was there to explore the island and that's exactly what I did. I managed to add about 600 miles to the odometer of my rental car doing it.

My weather was in and out that week. But it was 50 degrees warmer than back home even when it was raining, so I couldn't complain. I saw most of the island, although there are still plenty of things left to see if we go back. One thing I saw too much of was traffic. Getting around the island is a nightmare. Don't do it if you don't have to.

My quest is told in more detail at this link: The Best Beach In Puerto Rico

Exploring Old San Juan

Our cruise this year left from San Juan, Puerto Rico, which meant we spent lots more time ashore than we did last year when we left from Ft. Lauderdale. To minimize the hassle of travel, we went a day early and stayed an extra day in San Juan.

San Juan is a typical, bustling modern city with traffic and urban pressures, but Old San Juan is a throwback to the 1600's. Its peaceful and picturesque with lots of history and interesting architecture. We spent a lot of time traipsing around and taking pictures.

The principal characteristic of the city is that it is comprised of several square miles that are totally inside the walls that the Spanish built to protect themselves. It seems the French and the English coveted its large natural harbor astride the Caribbean trade routes.

We had great weather the entire time -certainly far better than the snow happening back home in Rhode Island! We really enjoyed Old San Juan and would welcome a chance to go back again. Maybe next year?

For pictures and further commentary, please click this link:  Old San Juan

Our 2010 Caribbean Cruise

Carolyn's February school vacation is a time when we like to emulate Jimmy Buffett when he says: "I want to go where it's warm!" And there's not much warmer than the Caribbean  Sea, so that's where we headed.

Last year, we went with another couple on a Princess cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale. Cruises are interesting. The ships are gorgeous. The food is sumptuous and plentiful. The ports of call are all lovely - at least from dockside. But we were disappointed in last year's itinerary. There's only so far a ship can travel in a day and leaving from Florida meant we spent a lot of time at sea. So this year, we decided to take a cruise leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, which meant we spent more time ashore and less time underway.

Always looking for a chance to explore new places, I elected to stay behind in Puerto Rico for a week after the cruise ended. That adventure is the subject of the following post, which you will read first because of how these blog type thingies are structured.

Our cruise took us to St. Thomas, Dominca (pronounced dome-uh-NEE-ca by the locals), Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. Of them all, our favorite was Bonaire. Much less well known than its Caribbean cousin, Aruba, we found it especially appealing precisely because of that fact. It is small, neat, tidy, and attractive but most of all, it is NOT overrun with tourists. And it has beaches and breezes and warm Caribbean waters that beg you to stay for another day, another week - or forever!

So we ate and floated our way across many hundreds of miles, but our favorite activity of all was sitting on those wonderful beaches we encountered along the way. So next year, that's precisely what we intend to do - find a beach somewhere and park ourselves next to the waves that lap the shoreline and just soak up the sun. Yeah, we won't get to eat 14 times a day, but our waistlines will be better for it!

Can't wait!

You can view a compendium of pictures from the cruise at this link: Cruise2010

The Beautiful Blue Mountains Tour

Australia has great geological diversity. Sydney is built on a plain, but 80 miles to the west, the land rises up to over 4000 in elevation, with deep gorges that resemble the Grand Canyon and Hawaii's Waimea Canyon on Kuiai. On may last day, Janice and Matt and I took a tour of the area, which is a popular sightseeing destination for city folk.

Nigel, our driver and tour guide, regaled us with historical anecdotes about the terrain and the people who carved out their living there by mining coal from some of the most inaccessible in the world, dug into the cliff face from the side of a steep gorge. How they got anyone to do that enourmously difficult job is a great mystery.

At the end of the day, we were treated to a ride on the high speed from Olympic Park back to Circular Quay. Then we took another ferry back to Darling Harbor under a rising moon at dusk. It was a most enjoyable day!

To see the pictures of our adventure, go to this link:  Blue Mountains

Fresh Fish!

For those of us who live in the US and are pretty much used to having all our food portioned, packaged and pre-chewed, its a bit of a shock to go to the grocery market like we did last week or to the fish market here in Sydney, where most of the fish is offered up fresh and whole. I wouldn't now how to clean a fish if you threatened me, but if I lived here, I'd have to figure it out or starve.

A short course in fish nomenclature would probably be a good idea as well, as there are varieties available that I know nothing about. Anyone for a nice barramundi fillet, for instance? Keep in mind that the prices in the photos are in kilos, so with the exchange rate and the conversion to US dollars, our price per pound would be about 40% or less of what you see in the pictures.

In addition to buying your seafood, you can also dine at the Fish Market pier at any number of restaurants that offer entrees that are fresher than anything you can find at home, if you can find it at all.

Before we got to the fish market, we took a detour to Glebe for the weekly flea market. Part art festival, part buskers convention and part yard sale, it covers a city block with tent stalls offering everything from jewelry to pre-owned jeans. Like most communities here, it has a very busy main street, but things are quite calm and quiet just a few doors in from the main thoroughfare.

You can see pictures of today's adventure at this link:  Fish Market

Bon appetit!

Do You Know The Way To Double Bay?

Here's a collection of photos from various points around Sydney over the past two days. I have made it my mission to ride every ferry route on Sydney Harbor, and part of that included the ferry to the eastern suburbs called Double Bay and Rose Bay on Thursday. But that trip was preceeded by an excursion through Hyde Park and another part of The Botanical Gardens on the way to the ferry terminal.

The next day, Friday, we all went for lunch in North Sydney at a Chinese restaurant where they wheel the food by your table on carts and you simply select what interests you. It was a great meal and a most entertaining way to while away an hour or two. On the way home, we opted to take the one remaining ferry adventure and saw some of the upper harbor, which extends as much as 15 miles inland.

I'm getting so I rather like this city life. So much to do and to see. And of course I have to make sure to capture all of it to share with you. Hope you have enjoyed the trip. Its rapidly drawing to a close, sadly. Tomorrow, Sunday, we are off on an all day junket to The Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Don't know what we will find there but you can be sure I will record it all for your amusement and edification.

See you then.

Check out the Thursday and Friday pictures at this link:  Double Bay and Rose Bay

Eureka!

Carolyn e-mailed me last week to ask if I had found the place I wanted to live in Sydney yet. Today, I found it! Its called Mosman and the adjacent Mosman Bay. Cute, clean, quaint, close to the city, lots of quiet, tree lined streets, an extensive main street with oodles of shoppes and the prices seem about 20% less than in Sydney proper. Some of the photos are of waterfront homes along the Bay, and I rather think they might be a bit dear for our projected budget. But just up the street and around the bend, there is an assortment of single family and duplex dwellings that are quite appealing. The fact that you can easily take a ferry or a bus into the city is also a drawing card, as parking in Sydney, as in most large cities, is a challenge.

The weather has changed since I talked to you last, which is why there was no update yesterday. It rained the day before and so, for the first time since I got here, no photos were taken. Yesterday was overcast and threatening more rain, which came in the night. So the exposure on today's pictures is not ideal, but the best I could manage given the conditions.

Ah, a comfortable home in Mosman Bay, a boat to go out upon the harbor in and a Miata or MINI to tour the country side in.... THAT would be too sweet, now wouldn't it?

Enjoy the photos at this link: Mosman

Cheers!