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.

Day 4 in Vieques: Night diving

Date: 04.03.2014

Brandon setting up the gear, the pier is seen behind of the fence (by stnz)

I managed to get myself feeling better before leaving for the dive, I was only tired, and I was pretty sure I was going to wake up at the pier. Soon enough, changing the clothes and getting the weight on my back (added to the wetsuit scraping my knee like sandpaper) I managed to wake up.

We talked about the weights with Brandon and it turned out that the lead weights he removed weren't heavy enough, so he re-calculated the weight so it was the 14lbs like we talked earlier.

The darkness came pretty quickly and it was pretty fun to look at the sunset while floating on the surface paddling to our starting point. I could go down pretty well with the new weight and I got my ears popped easily. On the first dives at the same place it was a bit of a problem, but now my ears were starting to play along and not causing any troubles.

Little puff fish (screen capture from stnz' video)

Using the led light was surprisingly easy, and you could see a lot: it was much clearer than it was in the morning and there was lots of new animals hanging around. Added to the fishes and sea turtle we saw earlier there was another turtle, sea urchins, octopi, some "drunken fish" which came to eat little critters which were attracted of our lights, and hitting us in the face and all over the body with force. Seeing the rays during the night were also awe-inspiring that it was during the day.

The weights were now feeling good, because I could effortlessly float in every level and move around just moving a little my fin(s). Going to the bottom went more controlled and adjusting my level was more easier just with my lungs. The whole dive I didn't use my BCD anywhere else than during descending and at the surface, and it was empty in between. After admiring the bottom and playing with my lungs for a while, I decided to go little higher and stay as the last one of the group because the guys were diving in such way that I was afraid I would be hit to the head by them on some point. That's why I was staying ~1m higher than when I was diving my practice dives with Carlito, and mostly just staying put waiting them to go forward before moving forward myself. And I also spend some time showing light to stnz every time his light stopped working. Only problem with this lazy style of diving was that I was getting cold in 26C water in a full (3mm) wetsuit :D.

Coolest thing for me was a puff fish I spotted at the bottom right before we got up, it was a lot smaller than the ones we usually saw there and it was puffed all the way up. It was really a fascinating sight and it was fun to look at it.

After 52 minutes of diving we got back up. stnz had 750psi on his tank, halen had 500psi and I had something over 1300psi. It was a fun dive and I cannot wait to do more night dives in future!

Video of the dive by stnz:

"Could you fucking not?" (by stnz)

After the dive I started to notice a pattern - our taxi failed to come when it was arranged, so Brandon called us a new one and we stayed at the pier looking at the beautiful stars (I had no hurry to come up from the water earlier because of this, I was floating around in the water for a while when everyone else got up..). You could have a beer after the dive if you wanted, but because halen was the only one drinking - he had to drink the beers for us.

After the dive we decided to go to Esperanza and we needed to find some place with internet so we could find a car and a place where to stay in San Juan. Unfortunately the WiFi was as bad there as it was at our apartment, so no luck with those. I showed our DMs some pictures I took today, and from the reception, they were pretty ok :).

When it was time to leave, once again our taxi failed us (same driver again) and just drove by the bar without stopping even though I asked him to pick us up there at 11pm. The taxi service closed at 23:15, so I was feeling a little desperate: 3 dives in one day and 10kms of walking, with only one chicken salad bagel as fuel, wasn't sounding like a nice idea. I phoned like 10 taxi/bus operators, no-one was answering or working any longer and I started to think about the option of sleeping on the beach.. Then in some stroke of luck one of the nice cabbies we used earlier drove by, working extra time, and he agreed to give us a lift back to the apartment.

Before leaving I ran back to the bar to give a hug to Brandon and thank him for the fun dives, and missed Carlito because he was working; I hope Brandon delivered my hug to him, as he promised ;).

Brandon looking at my pictures and me explaining something (by stnz)

And Carlito  (by stnz)

Thanks guys, it was fun to dive with you, and I learned a lot of stuff from Carlito I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have learned if I'd went somewhere else to do my open water dives :).

It was a fun and eventful day, and I didn't need much effort to get some sleep when we got back.

Day 4 in Vieques: More diving!

Date: 4. 3. 2014

The turtle living under the pier was somewhat curious about me and swam close by

Yesterday I got my temporary papers from Carlito, and today I booked not one, or two, but 3 dives, and one of them was a night dive. Way to start something slowly Mia, again :D

Brandon

I woke up early, ate something quickly and waited for the cab - once again it was the lady who had been couple of minutes late everyday, which is pretty annoying as a Finn, because we like to be punctual and little bit early or on time. Now I solved the mystery why she was late, because the clock in the taxi was off like 3 minutes :D.

Scorpion fish

Of course, the taxi picked up 2 other persons on the same drive, which made us more late because the ladies weren't ready when the taxi came. I had an interesting discussion with them, both of the older ladies were from Michigan and we were talking about the "odd habits" their finnish neighbor has (making snow- and ice lanterns, and leaving her baby to sleep outside in the cold) and I confirmed to them that it was completely normal in our little country.

When I got to the pier, Brandon (Bob the diver) and Zach was already waiting for me. Zach was a tall dude (2m) living in Boston, who had dived 7 times before and was dreaming to get the chance to dive with the animals in Boston Zoo - you need 15 dives before you can apply for it.

On the two dives I got to photograph some stuff and try to stay calm and slow without Carlito. I felt that I had a little too much weight on me (which Carlito earlier said that he thinks there's too much) so I asked Brandon to remove some of the weights for the second dive. It didn't feel like it changed things though.

I started to get some grip with the buoyancy control even having too much weight on, so I had time to take and think about the pictures I took, instead of just pointing somewhere and shooting. Now I just need to think how to rig some lights on it, and get the red filter.

We had two pretty good dives, the first one was a little short because Zach was hoarding all his air - on the second dive he lasted longer, fortunately. I had a lot of air when we got to the surface, and I think I only touched once my BCD under the water, rest of it I did with my lungs, and BCD pretty much empty.

Lion fish, a long way from home, eating all the local species like the cookie monster eating cookies.
Beautiful, dangerous, and in completely wrong place.

This guy was way over 1,5m wide

On the first dive I somehow let go from my mask when I took it off from my head to adjust the bandanna, and lost it in the sea. Brandon took his fins and mask and found my transparent mask pretty quickly, my hero <3.

Brandon found a flooded maglite from ~11meters.

After the dive, the guys stopped by to snorkel, and Brandon gave me a lift to Isabel, while the guys were using the scooter. We ate (I ate my only food for the day - chicken salad bagel), and I stopped to sit in the park and drink more water because I was feeling a really woozy because I completely forgot to drink. I sat there like 40 minutes, drinking water and waiting for stnz to come and pick me up, but he never showed. So when I got enough strength and courage to get up, I walked the 1,5km or something back home. Stnz passed me by right near our apartment, he got distracted by a huge and colorful iguana this time. And got  a hit from it's tail - maybe he'll learn to stay away from those in the future, or respect their peace :D.

Finally, at the apartment, I felt really shitty and the world was spinning again - I had 3 hours before leaving for the third dive, I got some ibuprofen, magnesium and 2 liters of water and some milk in me. I can say that I felt really tired on that point, and scared if I'd make it. Otherwise I felt nice, without counting the dehydration.

Day 3: Beach and stars

Date: 03.03.2014

Today we had an off day from diving. When we got our asses off from the bed - it took some time, because I was resting my leg outside, drinking coffee and watching the geckos to do their things and the guys joined me. After that we headed to Esperanza to see the "tourist town" which is basically few beach side bars, small souvenir stores, and a large beach. There is a pier one one side, and it's filled with fish, so it's a great place to snorkel. The guys snorkeld for a while, and I staid at the beach underneath the coconut trees trying to get some sun on my white as... well, everywhere.

Unfortunately they did got bored pretty soon and Eerik wanted to rent scooters. He only got one and after a quick math, I offered to take the taxi back to our apartment and hang there for a while with my scraped knee.

The guys went to see some bunkers with the scooter. The marked road was really an overgrown dirt road, and they came back to the apartment complaining how they didn't feel their balls anymore (yeah, thanks for the info, and I loved to share that info also with you  ;) ), I'm pretty sure the suspension was dying underneath them, poor suspension.

After lying around for a while, we wanted to go to the biolumincent bay to see the glow. Getting a taxi back there wasn't possible, the dispatcher was force feeding me the bio tours and saying that the taxi cannot go nearer than in Esperanza, but fortunately they really could take us to the parking lot where the tour groups met. From there, we started walking (me and Timo) and Eerik played with his scooter.

Unfortunately the bay was pretty silent, except the lights and people around in their kayaks. We decided to head back and take some night pictures of the sky from the Sun Bay, before heading back to Esperanza to visit Carlito to get my Diving log book and temporary diving license.

Taxi service stnz as your service

We sat down at Lazy Jack's and I had a short chat with Carlito what to do next with my longer plan as a diver, before getting a taxi back to Santa Maria and heading back to bed.

Debriefing at Lazy Jack's (by stnz)

I found a 10cm moth, I placed it somewhere dark and safe after admiring it for a while

Day 2 in Vieques: What? More diving!

Date: 02.03.2014

Another early morning. I was dreaming about grilled chicken, because our nights haven't really been good. It's because of all the roosters outside, lucky for us - one of them is straight outside of my window making his awful noise from 3 to 5 (am), because apparently our apartment is right in top of his territory. I've spent a lot of time in our family's farm as a kid, but I never got annoyed with the roosters. There were two of those in separate places, but they settled for 1-2  yells per day. These roosters will make noises as a loop - when one starts, others will follow, and then it loops back to where it started, just to start again. Making a blowtorch and some grilled roosters is sounding pretty great about now - and I'm usually not really into the thought of mass murdering animals... 

So, if you ever get here, BRING EARPLUGS, some Peltors would be better. My earplugs are designed for sleeping, and they're designed to let high pitched noises to come through (fire alarms etc), so they aren't really working with those fuckers. That's why I've made my head as a sandwich here, putting one pillow on top and one under my head. Yay for sandwiches.

Today we changed the diving site, and the guys went for a boat dive, so I was completely alone. After another bad night of sleep and only half a cup of coffee I was afraid I would fuck everything up today. We met up with an older couple who were doing their refreshing dives; they had been diving over 10 years. After some talk I found out that the woman, Lisa, and I were almost neighbours - she was living in Sweden until she was 5, and both of her parents were Swedes.

On the first dive I had to take the stupid mask off again, which is something that most of the people hate and fear. Lucky for me, my eyes seem to be gotten used to the water, so I could open my eyes and see underwater, so I threw Carlito my mask - and  he almost stole it. I would have had to kill him, if he'd done that for real :D

We navigated to a underwater stone and then followed a wall which was full of life and because of the location we felt some of the force of the waves. It didn't took me long to get the hang of it how you should move there with the current.

Brandon and Carlito

Carlito looking stuff and keeping an eye on me

On our second dive, we joined Brandon and the couple, and I finally got to see an eagle ray, which the guys seem to love a lot, and yes, they are beautiful. Unfortunately it was so far away so I couldn't take a picture of him. We also encountered a resting shark, which almost hit Carlito on his head with the tail, when it had enough from us.

This time we weren't down so deep as yesterday, and I had 1000psi and 1200psi left after our dives, which were 54 and 73 minutes long. I really hope I'll get better managing my air in the future, but it's a good start. Lisa had 1500psi left on our second dive and we were all certain that she had her own first rule of diving: never breathe. But she was significally more smaller than I am, much shorter and 1/3 as wide as I.

Carlito noticed I was giving him the bunny ears :D

Now I finally had all the stuff done for my OWD, and now I can continue diving in Finland and do it in Iceland, if I have the money (and company) to go there during the summer :).

After the dive it took some effort to get us together with my hairy big friends, I talked Brandon and Carlito into leaving me by myself to wait for the guys at the post office, because I didn't want to waste their day on something that trivial as standing idle with me. I think they had something better to do than babysit me. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long before the guys arrived.

Of course, when we were walking back to the apartment, I found one place where there was some water and didin't watch my step - I fell down and hurt my knee. And scratched both of my ankles.

Later that day the guys were kind enough to drive the short (2km) distance to the town centre by taxi, because they understood that the swelling knee wasn't really a pleasure to walk around with. Once again we found our way to the pizza place and near to their internet. After that it was once again trip back to the apartment with our neighbour the taxi driver, and we were all sleeping like babies until the roosters started to make noises again.