Day 1 in Vieques: Diving

Date: 01.03.2014

Yes, I love to be photographed under water too

Today was the time to start my open water dives for my OWD-certification. The day started early and we went outside to wait for the cab the scuba diving ppl had arranged us. When we reached the nearby baseball field, the only car that came there just in time was a minibus (it's a long GMC van), I asked two times from the guy did the diving ppl order him to pick us up, and in local way  "don't understand = YES" he got us on board. When we reached the nearby city of Isabel, he asked us "where now?" ..Shit.

We found a guy who spoke English and he translated stuff for us. Turned out that he wasn't really knowing where to take us. The diving ppl's organizer was really concerned who took us, but after I gave her the full name of the guy, she relaxed.

The Sea Cow in her black burrito covers

We got to the pier and turned out that it was just me and the guys - it was funny to see that the guy's instructor was the same guy I said at the ferry terminal that "if that dude is not a diver, I don't know who is" :D. I was lucky and I got to do my open water dives private - it was just me and Carlito. He is pretty much the nicest guy I've ever met, and he really is a wizard underwater. I'm usually the kind of person who goes fast from A to B if I have A and B, but he likes to do things veery slowly underwater and he dives near the bottom. It was a good thing for me to see that you can go even slower underwater and see more stuff, and because how low he was diving, I had to learn to control my buoyancy pretty quick simply by breathing, and forget about using the BCD.

Carlito stealing Brrandoon's fin with a sneaky underneath dive (by Halen)

Sea turtle searching for food (by Halen)

Braaandon floating around the pylons (by Halen)

The pier was really beautiful place, and I can imagine that if I lived in Vieques, I would be diving there almost daily. The place is just magical and there is just so much to see and photograph. During our dives we spotted a huge stingray (around 1 metre wide) and lots of more interesting animals, and some really beautiful fishes I just stopped to stare and almost forgot why I was there. One point we noticed Brandon and the guys diving by, and they didn't notice us our the sounds Carlito was making, so he swam underneath the guys to the other side and just took one of Brandon's fins from his leg. Now I've tried laughing through the regulator too :D. Fortunately Timo got a picture of this nice surprise, which we Finns could describe as "Vittuilu on välittämistä" = "Fucking around with someone is caring"

Apparently I did pretty well and I was a natural according to Carlito, but maybe he just says it to all of his students :).

My hairy walrus friends and Brandon (or Bob the diver), their guide

After the dive we got back home and walked back to the town to get something to eat. We walked around for an hour or so, and stumbled upon some cute animals. I've been missing my dogs, so I had to give some TLC to a dog we saw. He had a timid friend, who started to trust me pretty quick, but unfortunately he seemed to have some painful sores around his neck, so I couldn't touch him. But it was really heartwarming to see him gnawing his buddy with his front teeth after I was done scratching his buddy.

Finally the guys settled on a place where we should go to eat, and it was a pizzeria where they had a fast internet = we could upload pictures and update our blogs, which is nearly impossible at our apartment. The diving really wears you off, so we were all done for the day at 22.

Locals are in a bar next door

San Juan to Vieques

Date: 28. 2. 2014

Today is was time to move our asses to Vieques. On 26th we were surfing on the net and looking for a place where we should move ourselves next. For some reason we stumbled upon Vieques and after some searching, we decided to go there. I found a place to do my open water dives for PADI OWD, and mailed them. It didn't take long I got the dives booked and couple of shore dives for the guys.

First we drove around San Juan - lost, because the rental car agreement didn't really give the correct address, and the site for the rental car company gave a completely wrong address. Fortunately, I found the nearby car company from a tourist map Halen had discovered from the flying school yesterday, and we finally made it.

The idea was that we'd continue the rent and drive the car to Fajardo, but the company didn't have an office there. Next company we asked had only a minivan, which would've cost 70USD + 40USD dropoff fee for leaving the car for another office on the island. That's when we decided to take a taxi, which cost us 91USD (including the tolls) and we got dropped off straight at the ferry terminal.

First we missed the ferry for 15 minutes, and the next one which was leaving in an hour was sold out. The cargo handler said that they'd start selling tickets for 16:30 ferry at 15:30. So off we went to a nearby pub and ordered some food. After eating halen and I had an eerie feeling, and halen went to wait for our tickets around 14:30. I went to look for a geochache by myself, but stumbled upon a guy who was.. uhm.. a bit drunk. And raging to himself. So I decided that it wasn't really a good place for me to be by myself. I got back to stnz and we went to see halen, he was the second in the line and they just opened the ticket selling office. Over 30 minutes earlier than the cargo lady said it would.

We had a long wait at the terminal, and managed to get into the wrong queue after listening one of the terminal workers yelling loudly in Spanish to everyone without us understanding a word, even by asking.

The ferry trip was 1h long, and you couldn't go up on the deck, you had to stay inside the whole time.

When we got to Vieques, everything looked a bit chaotic. Not-so-official taxi drivers were blocking the street and the traffic, and the road was really narrow. I spotted a cabbie, and asked the guys to go to him and as him if he was free. He said that he was picking up his wife, but could take us at the same time with him. After getting lost a bit (in Puerto Rico and on this island, there really aren't street names to navigate with..) we found our place - and it was couple houses away from the taxi driver's and his wife place :D

Local teens move around with horses, you could tell by these two which was the mare and which was the steed.

Because we didn't know how bad the rental car situation was in the island, we were without a car. Our host was kind enough to drive us to a restaurant with her truck - halen sat in the front, and me and stnz sat outside, true banana island -style :D. She also gave us a ride to a local market where we could get some breakfast before getting us back to the apartment. Which doesn't have wifi, which makes it a lot harder to post anything online.

Waiting for our dinner