Going Island Style - Days 8 and 9

I’ve lost all track of what day it is, which when you’re on vacation, is the goal, right? We are in Vieques and I have to say, it’s very nice. Everyone looks for different things on vacation, and naturally I want to have waves, but again, I think for surfing to really work, I need to get the kids involved for it to be a true vacation. If the whole trip is about my own self-interest (i.e., surfing), I can’t seem to enjoy it because I worry if everyone else is having fun. I also realize that in thinking this way, I am an anomaly because I’ve noticed that most people couldn’t give two hoots about how everyone else is feeling. Oh well, such is life.

We landed in Vieques on Thu and are spending five days on the island. My first thought was, “What the heck were we going to do for five days?” As it turns out, plenty. We are renting a beautiful villa in the middle of the island, it even has a name, Casa El Dormilon, Sleepyhead House. The house is huge, and so cool, you have to really see it to appreciate it. There are two wonderful decks and because we are high up on the hill, we get a constant breeze. The house has doors all over the place that open up and let the wind keep the house cool, which is really nice.

The best thing about this situation is finding your groove and making the most of it, which is what we’ve done. Basically it’s embracing the island groove, and when you’re a busy New Englander, it takes a few days. There is a full kitchen and even a BBQ, which have yet to take advantage of, though we bought meat to make burgers.

We wake up in the morning to beautiful warm weather, with the breeze so it’s not sweltering, and then have breakfast of cereal or eggs or bread and some fruit. We hang and read while the kids run around the grounds, then we head to the beach to snorkel and swim. The beaches are amazing, right out of a movie, with palm trees and gentle water, perfect for the kids and adults to swim in. The snorkeling is amazing, and we’re all are having a blast. Kids don’t need much in the way of a beach to love it, just sand and water. We have found that mornings are good for snorkeling, and evenings are good for just hanging in the water and sand.

The island itself is really cool, as well, with lots of places to check out, and good food. In fact, we ate our best meals in PR here, at Cafe Sol, where we had killer empanadas, carnitas tacos, and pulled pork sandwiches. Really good stuff.

There are several national parks here, so the beaches are unspoiled and undeveloped. In fact, one of the beaches here was, Sun Beach, was awarded a Blue Flag for being ecologically sound and environmentally unspoiled. Apparently it’s a really big deal, and we found one on the Greek Islands, as well. Either way, as you can imagine, the beach was beautiful, and the water is really warm. All I need is to find some waves.

We are really enjoying our time in Vieques, and part of it is having a really nice home base to plan our days and finish in comfort. We have found just such a house, so we are in good shape.

More on Vieques later. Until then, thanks for reading.