From San Juan to St. Croix

Date: 08.03.2014

It was time to move again. This time we were using a small airline company called Cape Air. I was just barely surviving standing up and walking after last night's migraine, and it almost hit back when we were standing in the line at the package drop/check in. Fortunately I had some painkillers inside my bag, so I managed to kill the oncoming storm before it was too late.

Airport terminal in San Juan

We did know that our aircraft would be small, and it was confirmed at the check-in when they weighted our hand luggage and asked about our weights. It was really interesting, because hell do I know my weight in imperial scale; something from "a lot" to "too freakin' much" :D.

Our "tour guide" talking with our captain

Almost in St. Croix

We were escorted to the aircraft and all our personal luggage was put to the space in front of the aircraft or inside it's wing. I will never get used to the american way that people talk to you and say your name when they are addressing to you, I heard my name during the walk and going inside the plane more times than I hear my name said in a month back in Finland. Yet I can say that it's pretty nice custom, and makes the service / conversation a lot more personal than "yeah you, you there" -yelling and pointing :). And it's also cool that people say my name usually right on the first time, even though some people from the main land first try to make me "Maya" before they start to use the correct pronunciation "Mia". Puerto Ricans seem to get it right on the first time :).

At the St. Croix airport

Stnz managed to fail our car rental and we ended up with more expensive premium level car. Well, the only problem is that it's not a car, it's a Ford. Ford's aren't cars. And this one (Taurus) has some odd level of accessories; it has bluetooth, computer, but no park assistance or turning assistance lights.

Spotting hydroplanes

Our apartment wasn't ready before 15, so we headed to the marina and stumbled upon another airline, which made its flights using hydroplanes. While the guys were photographing the plane, I started talking with a stranger who said he had adoptive parents from Sweden / Denmark and stuff. This was the second person in an hour who just came to me and started talking with me about random stuff about their lives - I think I'm gonna like this place :D.

All the artwork is for sale from a local artist

Finally some real food!

It was time to EAT, and I chose us to go to Angry Nate's seafood restaurant which was close by.  Finally I got a real salad when I ordered one, which wasn't coleslaw or some iceberg lettuce inside a bagel. The smoked salmon was nice, but for a northerner like me the salmon should be more.. fatty and the.. uhmm.. ..smokening could be stronger :).

After we were done, it was time to head to our apartment. Next to it, I found one of the many of the town's ruins, and of course I had to go inside (yes, I still have a huge problem staying away from places which seem interesting enough and worth the risks :D). I found some old machines inside of it, which seemed to have something to do with printing.

Our apartment is looking really nice, and from all the places we've stayed so far, it's the one which reminds me of our building standards the most. It seems to be a solid build, and even the tiles on the kitchen or bathroom walls don't make my eye twitch and make me want to scrape all the plaster out and do the tile work again properly.. It's also cleanest one so far, in a way that you could do the "Scandinavian" way of being indoors and leave your shoes off all the time. I could see myself living in this kind of apartment on here, or in Vieques, or on some other neighboring island :).

This time I won the bed lottery, because the guys thought it was "too gay" to sleep on the queen bed together, so I got the bedroom to myself and they shared the couch in the living room :). I'm not complaining!

From the living room to the kitchen

The beautiful little kitchen

Timo in his bed, stnz's bed on the floor (pic by stnz)

And me in my own private bedroom, doing the exactly same thing in same position as what I'm doing now :) (pic by stnz)

Day 2 in San Juan: The day of Fails and a successful mission in Vieques

Date: 07.03.2014

Welcome to the Failboat, this is your captain speaking.

Today, things didn't really go as they were planned. Or well, I started with the fail theme last night by deleting all my beautiful night photos I took at the beach without uploading them to my computer. Time well spent. But well, things happen, it's a first time for everything and failing usually is a one time thing and I really do learn form my mistakes. To be honest, I was most bummed about the fact I managed to delete images of gecko tracks on the sand. They were adorable, as those little lizards are. I really love them and I want to have those :).

First fail for the day was me retrieving my towel from outside and heading to the shower. I managed to drop my phone from 10cm above the ground and break the display in a way that the touch feature didn't work at all anymore. Awesome! I had to go and buy a new phone after we got back from flying..

No crying over spilled milk, and it was time to head to the Isla Grande Flying School; we had scheduled a flight to Vieques from 9am with a local pilot instructor Jay. For some kind of insurance reasons stnz couldn't be piloting the plane alone, and he needed one of the local instructors to come with us for the trip.

We took of in good weather and arrived to Vieques on time. I ordered a cab to pick us up from the airport to move our asses to Esperanza, where we'd eat some lunch and I'd collect some sand for my little project at home I called the taxi and they promised that there would be one in 20 minutes. "Surprisingly" the taxi wasn't there in 25, and we were in a tight schedule. Luckily for us, when I was calling to hurry up the taxi (it was somewhere in Esperanza and 'running late' again) a minibus drove by. I managed to get it for us and we could go to Esperanza.

The Mosquito Pier seen above from the sky

Yeah, it's dead, Jim

Sand and sea at Esperanza, Vieques

Our hired gun, Jay, taking my usual seat as the map techinician

This was the second time for Jay in Vieques and he seemed to be pretty happy to get paid visiting the island with us :D. In Esperanza we ended up to Belly Button's to eat and drinking something. While we waited for our food, I went to the beach and got my sand sample. The guys were all laughing that it was "the world's most expensive sand ever" because it took a small aircraft and hired second pilot to get it :D

When we had eaten our lunches, we headed back to the airport and left back to San Juan.

Isla de Culebra

It's raining in El Yungue

Another Cessna going right underneath us

Flamenco Beach, ranked one of the most beautiful beaches in the world

We needed to go to the airport Avis to get extension for our car, because for some reason they didn't want to give it to us by the phone. It was a pretty quick trip not counting the minutes we were lost again in San Juan - Oh Boy the streets there are overwhelming at sometimes, with multiple lanes and lack of street names.. After that it was time to go and get me a new cellphone from a Radioshack.

Yes, stnz was here, and yes, stnz draw  his trademark walrus there :D

After we got back to the apartment, stnz and I decided to go swimming. First we both were there without anything expensive, but stnz decided to go back to the apartment and get his mobile phone. I noticed one guy was looking at us all the time under a palm tree, and when we went back to the water to rinse off all the sand, we noticed that stnz's phone was gone. Phoning to his customer and taking pictures with it, was enough to get the thief's attention. Fortunately it was an old Lumia which had some issues, and stnz managed to lock the phone when we got back to the apartment.

If this wasn't fail enough for one day, while I was in the shower I noticed I started to see some lines in my sight.. yes, I had a migraine coming. I ate as much painkillers I could get my hands on to in the apartment and started sleeping while the guys were in the Radioshack. When they got back, it didn't really take them a long time to notice that I was really out of it.

For that reason, the whole evening went while I was sleeping through the pain. After our fails, I'm still amazed we survived the flight and I'm still able to write this blog post :D.

San Juan day 1 (again): Shopping, FAA, walking and cursing

Date: 07.03.2014

Today was THE day for stnz, because it was time for his FAA-interview. He had all the necessary paperwork done and only missing the FAA interview. Before it, I asked the guys if we could go to a shopping mall, so I could buy some new shorts I was lacking this whole trip. Fortunately, there was a shopping mall near the FAA-office, and as a bigger coincidence: it was the one of the largest shopping malls in Puerto Rico and the FAA-office was inside it :D.

Before we left to the mall, we visited a nearby surf store, and me and halen started drooling when we reached the second floor and saw all the longboards. Must.. get.. one... or two...

Timo also spotted some skateboards which were replicas from the original skateboards - he couldn't decide which he'd take, or both, if we could take those boards with us back to Finland :).

The Addams Family -themed car

During this trip I've been reminded many times why I like to be single now. I've been feeling a little old and misplaced because I have to play the mom all the time "Put the computer down and come to eat" "The videos can wait, real life cannot wait - we need to go now!" "Change your shirt & shower, you smell" "Don't be so angry, try to smile sometimes" "Everything I say is wrong, I'll go somewhere else then and try to be quiet" "You should eat better, you only get angry and hungry fast with that kind of food" "Ew, don't do that, you'll gonna hurt yourself" "Remember to take / call XX, really, do it NOW or you'll forget it completely". I really do sound like a mom taking care of the guys. I don't like it.

 The mall was pretty big and full of nice stores. I found my shorts, a cabin bag for some gear and one pair of Converse's, which were designed a little different than any Converses I currently own. Halen was shaking his head when he saw me very happy after buying the shoes, that I had odd perversions. Little does he know :D.

Their mom was missing and they got their truck stuck at the mall :D

After some ok breakfast it was time for stnz to go to his interview and me and halen did the shopping. It took 1 hour before stnz could come back, because of all the paperwork. It turns out, he needed 1 hour flight with local instructor to get his license after all.

That's why we headed out to Isla Grande flying school after the interview, to set up the flight before we needed to go somewhere with a plane.

Stnz was lucky and the instructor had the time to go immediately for a checkflight. The flying school only had Cessna's so it was going to be an easy and fun task for stnz because he knew those planes already very well.

Before starting, he drove us somewhere because halen didn't want to sit and wait at the school without his pad.. Turned out, that we were ~3kms away from the old city, so we started walking there.

We had time to walk there, go and eat some frozen yogurt (which was bad, the Charlotte airport frozen yogurt was "the stuff"), get some coffee, do some sightseeing and almost got bored. I got my 10 000 steps per day filled in the start of our walking trip..

After stnz was ready he picked us up and told us how much he had playing with the plane, we drove back to the mall and went into a supermaket. Food here was a lot better than the earlier supermarket we used, but the arrangement of the shelves seemed a bit illogical to a Finn. I really had some difficulties to find any zip-log bags I needed desperately (I'll tell you more later on why I needed those).

We headed back home, which freshly brewed espresso (we only have an espresso machine here, and the lack of coffee in the mornings is really a problem). It'll wake us up tomorrow morning when we have an early start for the day, again :).

Halen the tourist

Elderly woman watching the street from her window

First time on the trip I was reminded of work.

My new PRRECIOUS

The knee starts to look a lot better after I got some antibiotic ointment for it :). It still doesn't feel fun to walk around with.

After we got home, Timo made us some really good tortillas, even though he burned the first batch of the tortillas warming them in the oven instead of the microwave :). I only had two before the guys ate all the rest :D.

Unfortunately halen lost his new jewelry I found him from the mall, he lost one of the balls of his industrial piercing earlier this week while diving, and had to buy a whole new jewelry for it to get the ball. I promised to put it on him when we got back to the apartment, but we couldn't find that thing anywhere. Understandably this got halen frustrated, and he decided to stay at the apartment when we went to do some night photography. Poor Timo, I think we need to find a tattoo/piercing shop somewhere in San Juan, so we can get the ball for the barbell.

.. After eating halen's good cooking and drinking some stnz' tea, it was time to try some nighttime photography on the beach, more of that later on :)