After a month and a half of absolutely no good surf in Rincon, we got smacked upside the head with a gigantic swell this week. The swell came from the low pressure system that moved off into the Atlantic last week after delivering a tornado to Atlanta Georgia. Strong winds, low barometric pressure and a good fetch create waves in the Atlantic.
Check out some of the big wave pictures of Puerto Rico; the first is a sequence in Rincon Puerto Rico at the big wave spot, Tres Palmes. The second is on the North Coast of Puerto Rico.
Tow Ins at Tres Palmas | Rincon Puerto Rico Big Waves in Rincon Puerto Rico Rincon Puerto Rico can get huge surf!
The car in the foreground of this surf shot gives it some depth
Big Shore Break Surf
The tomatoes that Eddie planted in the cool garden beds that he made, are starting to get big. So Stefan and I decided it was time to make some tomato cages. Luckly(?) we have 6 big rolls of fencing left over from putting up the fence in the backyard, so we recycled one roll into tomato cages.
When Stefan’s buddy Eddie was in town, he spent a lot of his time gardening and planting random things in our yard (thanks, Eddie!). He threw some lettuce seeds in places that he figured that they would grow and, guess what?! They did!!
I decided to make myself a midnight snack the other day and enjoy the fruits vegetables of our labor…
Fresh lettuce growing in our planter:
Picking the lettuce:
Mmmmm…:
There is something about growing your own food that makes it taste so much better. I can’t wait to plant more yummy vegetables!
As many of you know, there is not a whole lot to do in Rincon, Puerto Rico, once the sun goes down. Luckly there are many poker players in town, so we play home poker games 3 times a week. Mondays and Saturdays we play at Marks house and here are the official poker stats:
Does anyone know if Puerto Rico celebrates the ‘non-religious’ side of St. Patrick’s day? Just to clarify that, I know that it is celebrated in the churches here, but do local Puerto Rican bars (not tourist bars) dye the beer green, hang four leaf clovers and discount Bushmills and Jameson shots?
Last week, I started feeling a little weak, it was getting harder and harder to get up early for surfing every morning, I had muscle and joint soreness and it felt like I had water in my ears all the time. It was throwing off my equilibrium, making be feel dizzy and all I really wanted to do was lay around an relax. It was not accompanied by anything else associated with being sick (vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, etc) For me, sitting around is a hard thing to do…even when I am exhausted, I do what needs to get done or my mind starts running through the list of things that need to get done like ticker tape and it ruins my relaxing moments.
Well, by Friday morning I realized that my body was going into shut-down mode. I was completely exhausted, was really achy, had a constant headache and felt dizzy. It was enough to retire to the couch and bed for the entire weekend. I didn’t sleep much more than normal on Saturday, just didn’t feel like moving. I drank tons of water/juice and watched movie after movie (Assassination of Jessee James, Two Days in the Valley, Death Sentence, He Was a Quiet Man) and read a junk food novel by John Grisham called “The Testament.”
Without ruining the book, one of the characters in The Testament got Dengue Fever while in South America…and it got me thinking. Hmmm…..symptoms of Dengue Fever; Headache, Joint Aches, Muscle Aches, Nausea, Swollen lymph nodes, Rash and vomiting. Dengue Fever is a disease similar to malaria as it is carried and transmitted by mosquitoes (Aedes Aegypti Mosquito: Only feed during the day) and it can be found in the tropics or tropical climates.
Instead of panicking or even caring at all (I am very melancholy when I am sick), I slept for about 18 hours yesterday. I woke up when Summer came to bed at about 1:30am and had a little trouble going back to sleep but woke up again this morning around 7:00am feeling pretty good. We’ll see how it goes today, hopefully I am on the road to recovery!
It really is so cute how our little animal family is getting along. Kuta, Monkey and Cheech follow Stefan and I around the property while we are out and about and I swear that Cheech thinks he is a dog. We could literally walk him on a leash because he just wants to cruise around with us and be involved in everything we are doing. Cheech even gets involved when Kuta and Monkey play “chase” and he tries to chase Monkey when she goes into spaz mode.
Here is a video of Monkey and Chichieto playing in the backyard when we were planting trees today.
Stefan and I have been putting some effort into planting trees in the backyard and it’s coming along nicely! We threw down some grass seed a couple of months ago and it’s growing in pretty darn good for the little to no effort we have put into it. Today and yesterday we planted two 6′ MacArthur Palms and we turned that cool twisted tree stump that Stefan found in the quebrada, into an exotic planter of sorts.
Two new MacArthur palms (left side):
I wanted to do something cool with the stump and I figured that planting things around it would bring it to life, so we planted a triangle palm, macarthur palm and a red heliconia, in front and behind the stump.
Stump before:
Stump after:
We also want to plant something between the triangle palm and heliconia, but we havn’t figured out what yet. Perhaps some herbs, flowers or a vegetable?
We have another macarthur palm, a red palm, a pair of avocado trees and a mini flamboyan that we are going to plant in the backyard tomorrow. We also picked up 4 new coconut palms at the beach today, but we havn’t decided where to put them yet…
Stefan, Kuta, Monkey, Cheech and I were planting palms behind the house yesterday, trying to pimp out the backyard. We got two Areca Catechu’s in the ground and we were trying to figure out where to plant the red palm that we got from Montoso Gardens. Stefan figured out where it would look good and starting digging with the pickaxe…dig dig dig, dirt, rock, dirt, rock, rock, Medalla can, rock, dirt, THUNK. Uh oh.
Unfortunately we didn’t hit buried treasure. And the only gold we saw was a buried Medalla can. A sure sign that the plumber had been here a one time.
Stefan turned to me and asked if I remember where the ditch was that we layed the sewage line. I took a look at the house and then at the septic tank and it was pretty much a straight line where Stefan was standing with the pickaxe.
Whoops!
So we put our landscaping plan on hold and Stefan ran to the ferrateria (hardware store) to try and get some pipe to repair our septic line. Unfortunately it was Saturday at 3pm and all of the ferraterias were closed. Luckly, there is a plumber that lives in our neighborhood and Stefan found some scrap pipe in his yard.
We cut out the damaged part of the pipe and definately did some ghetto style plumbing. But after 2.5 hours, it works and it doesn’t leak, so mission accomplished.
Today I sent the check off to the Animal Rescue Foundation of Rincon. As promised, I matched any donations made and the total sent was $240. I know that ARF has been having problems staying open due to lack of funds, so hopefully this will help at least a little bit.
If you’d still like to donate to ARF of Rincon, you can send donations to:
Last week, I started feeling a little weak, it was getting harder and harder to get up early for surfing every morning, I had muscle and joint soreness and it felt like I had water in my ears all the time. It was throwing off my equilibrium, making be feel dizzy and all I really wanted to do was lay around an relax. It was not accompanied by anything else associated with being sick (vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, etc) For me, sitting around is a hard thing to do…even when I am exhausted, I do what needs to get done or my mind starts running through the list of things that need to get done like ticker tape and it ruins my relaxing moments. 
