Abuela, Summer and Sydney at the lighthouse

Beautiful Clear Blue Ocean

Sydney and Summer Reading at the English Rose

Stay tuned for some house updates, we’ve been going hog wild! In the past two months, we finished the back deck, built an outdoor shower, replaced the steps to the shed, built a new shed down the hill AND planted tons of new plants. Also, Sydney is still growing…bigger and bigger every day. She even started singing songs with us this week. Paddycake has also been a blast. Stay tuned.

Jordy Smith is the only surfer who can still feel the chop from Slater’s wake. If Slater wants to get this thing over with and not worry about Smith, he needs a third place finish or better. If Slater gets a fifth or a ninth, Smith can take the fight to Hawaii with a first. If Slater gets a thirteenth or a twenty-fifth, Smith needs a third. And if Smith get a fifth or worse, than Slater will be champion even with a twenty-fifth.

-Source

Here’s the thing, there are so many great surfers competing from Puerto Rico that all these guys have the chance of getting knocked out by a local PR ripper. Just to name a few; Darren Muschette, Brian Toth, Dylan Graves, Carlos Cabrero, Alejandro Moreda, Pablo Dias just to name a few (if I left some out and you want to be added, email me and I’ll add to the list, or comment them in!).

I digress; If you are in Rincon or anywhere on the west side of the island, go check out the slideshow, it’s bound to be a good time with GREAT photos.

Pre-Sydney, Summer and I would cruise out there to play black jack, Caribbean stud poker and Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. It is the newest casino hotel on the west side of Puerto Rico and is located a few blocks away from the BQN (Ramey Base) airport.

First, here is the flyer Rachel sent out to all of her friends..next are some Google Map directions to the Marriott Hotel & Casino in Aguadilla by the airport and last is google’s widget if you know the address of where you are located.

View Courtyard Marriott Aguadilla in a larger map

We both discussed getting certified to scuba dive before we moved down here, but we got too busy and never made it happen. Then we moved into our house project, along came Sydney and here we are, still not certified to scuba dive. We read about the dive adventures over at the Kruse Chronicles and discuss how great getting certified would be, but we haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.

Last winter, we booked a scuba diving trip thorough Taino Divers to Desecheo Island with friends that were visiting, but then found out Summer was pregnant so we couldn’t dive. Regardless of the non-scuba part of it, we still took the boat trip out to the island and snorkeled while everyone else dove. Since that trip, I have wanted to talk about how great it was, but we had no photos aside from a few of us loading up the boat.

The trip was really well organized and fun. As soon as you step into the equipment area, a feeling of teamwork and responsibility filled the air. We packed up our equipment into the back of their truck and walked down to the boat ramp. Once they beached the boat, we lined up and passed all of the equipment down the line and onto the boat. If loading all the equipment were left to the two Divemasters, it would have taken 2 hours to load up. Getting the group involved in a team work exercise is practical, a great way to introduce fellow divers to each other and a great first chapter in the diving experience they provide for you. Taino Divers did a great job creating a great vacation diving experience.

I have finally made the time to blog about the trip and have some great underwater pictures of Desecheo Island along with a beautiful video of the dive. The video ends with a very close encounter with a 40ft plus whale. It is breathtaking.

Diving Desecheo - Backlight Cave

Diving Desecheo - Rincon Puerto Rico

Scuba Diving Isla Desecheo

Taino Dive Shop Contact Info

Taino Divers - Dive Charters to Isla Desecheo

We have been cooking a lot at home; Indian food (plain yogurt marinade for the chicken), Mexican Baja style fish tacos, pasta, lasagna, grilled chicken, spicy stir fries. We have been having a lot of fun, eating great food, spending time together cooking and saving a lot of money because every $15 meal we cook lasts two days. Going out all the time was getting expensive in our little tourist town and we were getting tired of the same old-same old. Unlike Ocean City where I grew up, there is no back door with different pricing for the locals versus the tourist on a travel budget. We all pay the same prices.

One of our regular spots over the past year or two has been the sushi served over at The Pool Bar in Barrio Puntas (that’s the neighborhood on the windward side of Rincon). They have a great fresh salad (served with shrimp or ahi), delicious and creative sushi (coconut wasabi drizzled over the tuna roll) and an awesome seared tuna with beurre blanc sauce. Dennis and Carol, the owners, have been in Rincon for thirty plus years, raised their own family here and now have their adult daughter working the bar and their grandson keeping them in board games, skateboards and days at the beach. If it’s a hot night, go for a swim in the pool while waiting for your sushi or to wash off the strong buzz you tacked on with the Saki bombs you were doing. For Summer and I, soon enough it will probably be a combination of the above along with our daughter begging us to go for another swim.

Thursday Nights in Rincon

Jazz Night and Sushi at Pool Bar

I went over to get take out sushi for Summer and I last night. I didn’t call my order in ahead of time because I wanted to have a cold Presidente or two and listen to some live jazz while waiting. There was a good crowd with all the tables taken at 7:30 and a few people waiting at the bar to be seated. They started a new hibachi menu, but I didn’t go for any of those items, we stuck with sushi and salad (our usual). The Jazz was a refreshing change to the reggaeton, house music and nursery rhymes I am subjected to on the daily. I really like the live jazz, the band is a colorful bunch of guys and girls…and they make me tap my foot. I recorded some of a song so you could have a listen before you head over next Thursday for your sushi jazz experience.

After calling around and asking around, I had the job narrowed down to a few local businesses. I narrowed my choice down even more by price point, brand names and professionalism.

The Air Conditioner Units I wanted were the new Inverter type units. They save over 30% in electricity than their predecessors and considering Rincons Electric Bills just went up 30% last month, that is quite a bit of savings. I also wanted to get units that were strong enough to cool all of downstairs when all three splits were run simultaneously.

After research and due diligence, I decided I wanted to buy the Daikin brand split units.

Our two offices and the spare bedroom/gym are about 12ft wide by 18ft long with 10ft ceilings. Our great room downstairs (between the offices) is 40 feet long by 20 feet wide. I decided that the 24,000 BTU split inverter units were the right ones for the job. Keep them turned low for the offices and once we finish up the media room and new entrance downstairs, we’ll be able to keep it all cool by cranking the units in the three rooms with our interior doors open.

The company we used for the job was Aguada Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. They were here when they said they would be, installed everything professionally (centered, sturdy etc) and gave us a 5 year warranty on the installation and the split units and compressors.

If you are researching for an Air Conditioning company that services Rincon, use the business I used, they were rock solid on all levels. Tell them Stefan from www.ca2pr.com sent you to them and they will give you a discount AND give me a finders fee.

Here is their contact information:
Aguada Regrigeration and A/C
• Office Telephone Number: (787) 868-3936
• Cell Phone Number: (787) 614-0412
• Alternate Cell Number: (939) 640-3693

Yesterday, Summer and I drove past the old furniture store on the 115 (next to the Western Bank Financed construction project) and I am now a believer. I noticed some construction going on in the building the past couple of days (guys moving block and mixing concrete) and yesterday we saw the Fresh Mart crew walking around the inside.

Summer and I are stoked! It would be great to have a natural foods store in Rincon. The Fresh Mart in Aguadilla also has very healthy prepared meals that they server daily. Oooooh, I am so excited. Does anyone have any more information on this deal?

After much research, dozens of phone calls and emails, we got in touch with a Puerto Rico mortgage company which would grant us our loan (traditional, 30 year fixed rate at 6%) but they had a few stipulations to ensure we finished our house and didn’t take the money to the Bacardi factory in San Juan and drown out the noise of our newly purchased generator with rum. They required us to give them about 20% of the homes value in an interest baring CD account with them that they would hold for two years (we make the interest, but our money is tied up) and another 12% as collateral that we would finish the construction to their specifications. It was a bit of a shady situation, but after 6 months of trying for a mortgage (with impeccable credit and a large amount of money saved) we decided if we wanted to buy the Sector Vargas property we were going to have to trust the Puerto Rico mortgage company that would sell our mortgage to Banco Popular as soon as we closed the deal and they made their commisions.

Well, after giving the bank most of our cash/savings, we had to spend our present income on completing the house. This gave us a monthly budget (which we somehow managed to exceed on the regular basis) to complete our bathrooms, kitchen, flooring, electrical, plumbing, excavation etc. Well, come January, we had to hold off on dumping money into the house so we could pay taxes (we are both business owners so the tax man is always a bit of a mystery to us until our fiscal year is done).

Because we exceeded our monthly budget, I spent a good portion of my tax savings on the house, and realized that in order for me to make my taxes on time without penalty, the bank was going to have to issue us our Certificate of Occupancy which would lead to a refund of our initial deposit (about 12%). Summer knew we were going to make it just fine, but we hadn’t finished all of the required items on Banco Populars Popular Mortgage to-do list so I started going into the bank about a month ago telling them that the economy isn’t what it was and that I shouldn’t be required to complete all of the things they want me to do to the house. I talked them into sending an inspector out to the house, and with some well placed barking dogs, the inspector saw everything he needed to see to approve our Certificate of Occupancy!

Banco Popular / Popular Mortgage issued me a refund check on Friday, ten days after approving our Certificate of Occupancy.

They even have Vicious Cookies!!

Look at all that amazing produce! The local grocery store in Rincon, Puerto Rico (the Econo), pretty much sucks. The produce is horrible, the meat is bad and they run out of shit for long periods of time (who runs out of bagels for 5 weeks?!). I do understand that being on an island means that items need to be imported, but come on…It took me 2 days to ship my computers from California to Puerto Rico. Why can’t you keep bagels in stock?! Or yummy produce?! Sigh…