Rooster on the Front Porch

Our crazy rooster, that attacks Summer all the time, is quite brave. This afternoon, he (and his hens) were cruising around the front yard and decided to take a closer look at how humans live in Rincon. He cruised right up to the porch like it was nobody’s business and claimed the house as his own. Summer, Sydney and I are moving to the chicken coop next week.

Cheech the Cat Likes the Baby Chickens

Cheech absolutely loves the new chickens. He doesn’t want to eat them at all. He is just inspecting them to make sure none of them are sick or need medical attention. Cheechers says meow!!!

I even got a short video of the waterspout:

This was the first time that I’ve seen a waterspout in person and it was pretty close. It was really cool to see the water getting sucked up from the ocean and the waves up the waterspout were so rhythmic, it looked like an optical illusion.

A waterspout is a tornado over water and is formed when cold air and warm air start swirling around thanks to a fast-moving thunderstorm. The waterspout we saw lasted for about 15 minutes and seemed to be increasing in strength, until it suddenly dissipated.

In other news…Looks like a tropical storm (Emily) is heading our way and will likely hit Puerto Rico this weekend. Will it be our first hurricane?!

Rainy Rincon - Summer is coming

My mom has been visiting us all week and flies out of Mayaguez this morning on Cape Air. She flies to San Juan and her flight will then connect to Philadelphia via US Air. We are hoping this weather passes in time for her to fly out and catch her flight to Philadelphia. It looks like San Juan is already clear.

Today, we have some South East wind, minor leftover swell in the water and a nice tropical storm reminding us that summer is right around the corner. It is pouring outside right now. The rain is bouncing off the tin roof and I am drinking a hot cup of coffee. Life is good.

The New Deck Enjoying The Rain

Neither of them look very big, but they are both forecasted to hit Puerto Rico head on. Sweet, let’s see if the power company can justify their astronomic rates and keep our power going.

On a side note, how exciting for Sydney! She is only 2 weeks 6 days old and daddy is already telling her stories about how much fun hurricanes are. Rain, wind, everyone partying because no one has to go to work!

On another side note, the generator we have been planning on buying hasn’t been purchased yet. Maybe I’ll go get it on Monday with the rest of the island.

The thunder was rumbling this morning when I got up and went into the office around 6:30 and by 8:00am we were having power outages, downpours and a big stinky dog hiding under my desk forcing me to work side saddle. Here is a picture of the weather today…both satellite and via iPhone.

Rainy season has started again!

The plants are LOVING all of the rain

This morning I had to drive out to Home Depot to grab a couple tubes of Liquid Nails and I couldn’t help but notice how dry all of the hillsides are. It looks like southern California! For the most part, all of the grass is dead/yellow and most of the trees have lost their leaves. Even the bamboo on the side of the 115 is yellow and struggling for life.

I know it is just the cycle for down here. Dry all winter and wet all summer, but I am ready for rainy season to begin. We sure do have a lot of plants to water these days!

I just called a buddy down there to see how things are going and he said fine, except for the fact that we are about to get hit by a hurricane! Yep, that’s right. The weather forecasters are saying that this tropical storm is going to form into a hurricane and head north right smack into Puerto Rico.

We were so lucky all season this year. We had a bunch of storms move North of us and South of us, but none of them hit Puerto Rico directly. We had one storm that past us, then slid back and knocked out our power for a couple of days…but nothing major.

This storm is going to hit Puerto Rico, its just a matter of how powerful it gets before it runs over the island.

Oh well, I guess it just comes with the territory. I sure wish I were there with our friends watching the house so I could help lock it up tight and secure anything that might blow away in the wind.

A few of the guys said the reason the power is going out so much is because it is election time. I didn’t really understand, so I asked what the elections had to do with the utility company. They all agreed that every election season things go wrong, in this case, the electric company is having problems supplying power to Rincon. They continued to explain that the current mayor will announce that he has fixed the issues with the power company right before the election and that we will not have any more power outages. In short, the current government is making the power go out so they can look like champions and get more votes by saying they fixed it right before voting day.

I have to admit that election time is in November and Puerto Rico gets a lot of heavy weather systems, tropical storms and hurricanes in the months prior to election day. To me, logic dictates that the weather is the reason for the power problems in Rincon but what do I know about Puerto Rico? This country has its own way of doing things. What do you guys think?

I worked on ‘work stuff’ all day Saturday to take today (Monday) off and go golfing. The only thing stopping me from going to Aguadilla to the golf course was going to be the possibility of waves. Last night, at last light, the surf was starting to show up about knee high and I called my golf buddy with an audible: “let’s bring our surfboards to the golf course, if the surf is good, we’ll surf, then golf.”

Mother nature had a different plan for us today. I woke up, and it has been raining all night and is still raining this morning. Golf is out. I am heading out the door to surf, knowing that if there is no surf, I can keep myself busy on the computer working for the next 24 hours straight (maybe just 8 or 9 hours), but alas, the power just went out. I am typing this on battery back-up. Pray for Surf.

This past hurricane (Hanna) that cruised north of us, then south east to hit us and then back up North sent us some waves…just not in Rincon. I drove up to Isabella and surfed with about 50 of my closest friends (just kidding). It was head high to a couple feet over head, glassy and lined up.

Yesterday, I surfed in Rincon. I don’t have pictures but it was a South swell wrapping around the point and breaking in front of The Tamboo. Glassy lefts breaking into the bay towards Aguadilla. That swell direction is so uncharacteristic of Rincon it is weird to see the waves breaking there. There was a bunch of sand on the bottom where there is normally reef. I broke one leash and busted out the center fin of my fish. Not really a good day for equipment, but perfect for my head.