John Hathaway

Our outdoor dining area is surrounded by the rain forest-ish part of our garden. It’s shady and lush with lots of bromeliads, orchids, and a huge philodendron growing up a tree. And at the moment, it looks like a floral show.

Our neighbors recently left Vieques to head North for the summer months and left some additional orchids in our care. Two of them have exploded with blooms since they’re gone and our first bromeliad of the season has put out its spectacular blossom. What better subjects to try out my new camera!

Last Thursday we went to the 25^th Anniversary dinner for the Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust. The Trust does great work here and it was nice to get to meet more of the people involved.

Our friends Alex and Glenn hosted the event at their home, Villa Venti and  also catered the amazing 7 course dinner.

Things started up on the second floor deck with wine, appetizers, and a jazz combo. Then the dinner downstairs with some of the best food we’ve had here. The Trust president, Barbara Hyland gave a nice speech recognizing many of the people who started the trust and made it into what it is today. (She’s in the center of the last photo. Alex is cooking in the back.) And then we were entertained by a hula hoop performer. Just to remind us that we were on Vieques and nothing ever happens here without something strange and random.

Yoga

The classes at Hix Island House are great. I go up there all the time for yoga. Jennifer does a great vinyasa class at 9:30 every morning but Monday.

Restaurants

Our favorite restaurant is El Quenepo in Esperanza. The food and service are consistently the best on the island. We love Duffy's for lunch or post-beach cocktails. Banana's next door has a cool beachy look that draws in the tourists, but the food, cocktails, and service are much better at Duffy's. Definitely more of the locals' hangout.

In Isabel II, we love Taverna for lunch. (Taverna for dinner is also good, but totally different chef and menu. It's Italian for dinner.) Panaderia La Viequense has good Cubanos and other local style sandwiches. (But definitely operates on island time!) Bistro Isleno is not bad for slightly upscale Puertorican cuisine and is very approachable. If you must have sushi while you're here, Mr. Sushi is actually pretty good.

You may see lots of positive reviews still out there for BBH. This used to be the case, but is no longer. (The former chef now runs Buen Provecho, a great gourmet market in Isabel II. So nice to be able to buy good meat and cheese on the island!!)

Beaches

We live just up the hill from the entrance to the east wildlife refuge, so tend to go to those beaches the most. Our favorite beach is Playa la Chiva (aka Blue Beach). Great snorkeling on the west side of the little island. Silver is the furthest out and is often fairly empty. Caracas (Red) has a bit more surf, usually enough to body surf and is very popular, especially on weekends. Playauela (Garcia) is right next to Caracas, but they've closed part of the road, so it's about a 10 min hike to get there so it's usually sparsely populated.

The Sun Bay beaches are all great too, but with the other so close we don't venture over there too often.

Playa Grande is great to take a long walk, but not to swim.

Biobay

There are several kayak tours of the biobay, but we haven't tried any of them yet. The only non-kayak tour is by Island Adventures (http://www.biobay.com/) and it's a great tour. If you're interested in a day sail/snorkel trip, we've done the trip with Marauder and had a great time.

Other

I'd recommend taking a drive out the north east part of the island at some point: drive out the navy pier, see the Ceiba tree, check out the old bunkers, go out to Green Beach and stop at the mangrove swamp along the way.

Two of my favorite activities you probably won't find in any guides are a hike out to the lighthouse ruins near Puerto Ferro (http://johnhat.posterous.com/vieques-hike-to-the-lighthouse) and hiking around the ruins of the old Playa Grande sugar mill (http://johnhat.posterous.com/vieques-sugar-mill-ruins) Let me know if you're interested in either and I can provide some more detailed directions.

Culebra

There's no ferry from Vieques to Culebra. Both have ferry service to Fajardo, but it would take most of a day to get there that way. There are flights, but I don't know specifics. We haven't been to Culebra so I have no real advice, but I've heard from several people that trying to do it as a day trip is more hassle than it's worth.

My friend Brian took tons of great photos when he and Paul were here. This set is all of Esperanza (taken over multiple days.)

Esperanza is the “other town” in Vieques. It’s on the south (Caribbean) coast and is quite small, just a few blocks. (Map) Esperanza is pretty tourist oriented, and has a relaxed, beachy feel. The heart of Esperanza is the Malecon, the boardwalk along the protected little harbor lined with bars, restaurants , shops, and street vendors.

Wow, I haven’t posted anything in a long time! I had a crazy biz trip to Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, and back to San Francisco a couple weeks ago. I came down with the flu a couple days after getting home and barely got out of bed for a couple days. And then it kept hanging on and on. I have only really felt fully healthy again in the past couple days.

Last week our good friends Jane and Dorian came to visit with their new son Parker. (Most of the photos credits go to Dorian.) J & D were the people who first introduced us to Vieques when we came here with them about  two years ago. At that point their son Jamie had just gone off to college and they were planning to move here to Vieques. And then, surprise!, along came Parker. So now Jane accuses us of stealing their lives; I maintain that they reneged on their half of the deal. We had a great time with them here and eight-month-old Parker was a delight. Can’t wait for them to come back to la isla nena soon!

People keep asking for more pictures of our place here in Vieques, and I keep being lazy about taking and posting them. (There’s so much other more interesting stuff here!) But Brian took lots of shots while he and Paul were here visiting last week.

The first pic is from a distance looking at Barrio Lujan (our neighborhood). We’re about half way up the hill. The rest are all around the house or views from the house.

Our friends Brian and Paul are here to visit from San Francisco. Brian has been taking a ton of great photos and I’ll probably share them in several batches.

This set is from a hike we did out to the ruins of the lighthouse out on the wildlife refuge in Puerto Ferro. (Located here: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.096235,-65.423595&spn=0.008546,0.009656&t=h&z=17 ) This has become one of my favorite spots on Vieques. I love taking runs out to there because it’s such a reward when you approach the cliffs and the road opens up to the amazing vista you can see in Brian’s pictures.

One of the best things about Vieques is that even on one of the busiest days of the year you can have a beautiful beach mostly to yourself. We decided to spend the first day of the year at our favorite off-the-beaten-path beach. It was a perfect snorkel day and Chris and I each took a trip out. Charlotte had fun digging up crabs as usual.