As all of you know, we’re down to less than a month left on Vieques and we decided it’s time to make sure we do some of the things we’ve been putting off. I may have mentioned in a previous entry that there are two sea kayaks here at la finca along with paddles, and we’ve been saying since we arrived here that we needed to take them to the beach. Well, we finally decided to put the plan into action!
The kayaks had been stored underneath the deck of the Manager’s Cabin for quite some time, so the first task was to drag them out and get them cleaned up. Let me tell you, since they were stored upright rather than upside down, there was quite a bit of debris that had blown into the storage compartments. We laid them upside down on the picnic table that Jim so beautifully painted and started power washing them with the hose. Besides all the dirt and leaves there more than a few cockroaches that scurried out - rather upset that we were cleaning out their home, I suppose! Once the kayaks were scrubbed clean, the next step was to make sure they (and we) were sea worthy and the best way to determine that was to put them in the pool. After all, we hadn’t kayaked in a couple of years so we wanted to make sure we still knew how! As you can see from the pictures, we weren’t really able to paddle very far in our little pool but the kayaks didn’t sink and we handled the paddles pretty well, so I guess we accomplished our goal J
Yesterday, we were ready to head to the ocean with them so we strapped the kayaks onto the back of the truck and off we went. Unfortunately, we got a later start than we expected and by the time we got out there, a healthy late afternoon thunderstorm had hit and it was raining like cats and dogs. I was definitely wearing my pouty face as I was really ready to jump in the kayaks, but I knew the weather would probably be much better today…..and it was! Sunny and breezy and just lovely. It being a Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised there weren’t more people on the beach, but as is typical here, we practically had the whole place to ourselves. There was one boat anchored just offshore and maybe five other people on the beach. So, we pulled them off the truck, loaded up our gear into the kayaks and headed out. Did I mention it was breezy? Well, at the beach it was a bit more than breezy and the waves were higher than we’ve ever seen them. This made it a bit challenging getting into the kayaks and getting started, but we managed none the less. Our goal was to paddle out to the island just off of Blue Beach which is one of our favorite beaches. Well, everything started out smoothly until five minutes into our trip when Jim’s paddle broke in two!! Poor biscuit! He was such a trooper, though, and simply used one half of the broken paddle like a canoe oar and switched it from side to side.
It was probably a 20 minute trip over to the island and we were able to find a sandy beach that was blocked from the wind where we were able to beach the kayaks. The pictures of the kayaks in the water was taken from the island. It was a perfect place for beach combing and we found some great shells that we’ll clean and polyurethane so we can make them into necklaces or other pieces of art.
When we headed back to the beach, we found the current was a bit stronger than when we headed out and, despite our best efforts, the waves just pushed us closer to shore so we gave up and beached ourselves, figuring we would just drag the kayaks along to where we’d parked the truck. Well, let me tell you - those kayaks are much lighter when you’re just carrying them from the truck to the water and not a quarter mile down the beach! All I could think was, this would be a great “Biggest Loser” challenge!! We finally decided it made more sense to go get the truck and bring it closer to where the kayaks were than to try and drag them the rest of the way, so Jim sat with them while I got the truck and drove it down to where they kayaks were. So all worked out just fine and after they were secured, we spent some time cooling off in the water and collecting some more cool shells. All in all, an absolutely spectacular day!!
The kayaks had been stored underneath the deck of the Manager’s Cabin for quite some time, so the first task was to drag them out and get them cleaned up. Let me tell you, since they were stored upright rather than upside down, there was quite a bit of debris that had blown into the storage compartments. We laid them upside down on the picnic table that Jim so beautifully painted and started power washing them with the hose. Besides all the dirt and leaves there more than a few cockroaches that scurried out - rather upset that we were cleaning out their home, I suppose! Once the kayaks were scrubbed clean, the next step was to make sure they (and we) were sea worthy and the best way to determine that was to put them in the pool. After all, we hadn’t kayaked in a couple of years so we wanted to make sure we still knew how! As you can see from the pictures, we weren’t really able to paddle very far in our little pool but the kayaks didn’t sink and we handled the paddles pretty well, so I guess we accomplished our goal J
Yesterday, we were ready to head to the ocean with them so we strapped the kayaks onto the back of the truck and off we went. Unfortunately, we got a later start than we expected and by the time we got out there, a healthy late afternoon thunderstorm had hit and it was raining like cats and dogs. I was definitely wearing my pouty face as I was really ready to jump in the kayaks, but I knew the weather would probably be much better today…..and it was! Sunny and breezy and just lovely. It being a Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised there weren’t more people on the beach, but as is typical here, we practically had the whole place to ourselves. There was one boat anchored just offshore and maybe five other people on the beach. So, we pulled them off the truck, loaded up our gear into the kayaks and headed out. Did I mention it was breezy? Well, at the beach it was a bit more than breezy and the waves were higher than we’ve ever seen them. This made it a bit challenging getting into the kayaks and getting started, but we managed none the less. Our goal was to paddle out to the island just off of Blue Beach which is one of our favorite beaches. Well, everything started out smoothly until five minutes into our trip when Jim’s paddle broke in two!! Poor biscuit! He was such a trooper, though, and simply used one half of the broken paddle like a canoe oar and switched it from side to side.
It was probably a 20 minute trip over to the island and we were able to find a sandy beach that was blocked from the wind where we were able to beach the kayaks. The pictures of the kayaks in the water was taken from the island. It was a perfect place for beach combing and we found some great shells that we’ll clean and polyurethane so we can make them into necklaces or other pieces of art.
When we headed back to the beach, we found the current was a bit stronger than when we headed out and, despite our best efforts, the waves just pushed us closer to shore so we gave up and beached ourselves, figuring we would just drag the kayaks along to where we’d parked the truck. Well, let me tell you - those kayaks are much lighter when you’re just carrying them from the truck to the water and not a quarter mile down the beach! All I could think was, this would be a great “Biggest Loser” challenge!! We finally decided it made more sense to go get the truck and bring it closer to where the kayaks were than to try and drag them the rest of the way, so Jim sat with them while I got the truck and drove it down to where they kayaks were. So all worked out just fine and after they were secured, we spent some time cooling off in the water and collecting some more cool shells. All in all, an absolutely spectacular day!!
Either you two were sucking in your bellies big in that photo or all that hard work has weight loss benefits!
ReplyDeleteJennifer