The Photo Album: Vieques, November 2002

	Nov. 17 San Juan airport on a Sunday, a sea of humanity and very few places to sit down. Brian is enroute between Detroit and St. Thomas, changing planes in San Juan.
	Nov. 17 The first of several little planes on this trip. This one flies from San Juan to St. Thomas.
	Nov. 17 Clouds and stuff through the window of a little plane.
	Nov. 17 The inside of the little plane. We're at 1400 feet, going 110 miles an hour for most of this flight. That's a puddle-jumping putt-putt, in technical terms. These planes are small, slow, bumpy, and really, really, loud.
	Nov. 18 The St. Thomas harbor shot from the hotel patio.
	Nov. 18 The girls in Vieques airport after flying through Minneapolis, Detroit, and San Juan on a two day trip.
	Nov 19 The apartment at the Seagate in Vieques. Two channels on the TV, and no telephones in the rooms. No air conditioning either. (Below Left) The kitchen in the apartment. Home is where you dump your stuff. (Below Right) The compound: looking south towards the entrance.
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking east towards the “pool”
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking east northeast.
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking northeast.
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking north towards Isabel Segundo and the Caribean.
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking northwest
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking west northwest, towards the road.
	Nov. 19 The compound, a panorama shot, looking west towards the girl’s apartment, identical (mostly), to the one above.
	Nov. 19 The view from the old fort back towards the Seagate (upper left), where we live now.
	Nov. 19 The view from the old fort north towards the town and the ocean
	Nov 20 St. Thomas from the air, on the way out. Note the cruise ship in the foreground. If you look close you can see all the passengers barfing over the railing.
	Nov 20 The San Juan airport on Wednesday, from the same spot. Where is everybody?
	Nov 20 On the ground after flying into Vieques airport on this little plane.
	Nov 20 The girls decide to ride horses, which means there is a grooming session first.
	Nov 20 Megan brushes mud out of the horse’s hair and works on a stylish horsey hairdo. (Below Left) Audrey astride and ready to ride. (Below Right) Megan mounted and already working on the sunburn that haunts her for the next several days
	Nov. 20 Rita likes horses. She’s allergic to them, but she just can’t help herself. Let the sniffling commence.
	Nov. 20 Vieques from horseback. The girls visited parts of the island that nobody else caught sight of.
	Nov. 20 Vieques from horseback. Audrey took these photos at a full gallop while hanging under the neck of her horse like a Mandan warrior. Pretty good, eh?
	Nov. 20 Brian works on email. To get a connection on Vieques you are required to bring your laptop to an outdoor table next to the chicken coop and dial-in. That’s the chicken coop on the left (there are chickens hiding in there, honest).
	Nov 20 The ladies in the compound after dark. It's more fun than it looks.
	Nov. 21 We rent a Jeep Cherokee and visit Sun Beach, on the south side of the island. There is a half mile of beach just like you see, and nobody there but us. It rained, but it was nice and warm
	Nov. 21 Sun Beach action shot. Audrey swept away.
	Nov. 21 The beach, the sea, the sun, and us. Note 1/2 mile of beach and nobody.
	Nov. 21 Looking the other direction down Sun Beach. Megan glistens whitely, like the snow we miss so much.
	Nov. 21 On the way out of Sun Beach there is a weird tree. This is like a magnet to Rita, who photographs weird trees wherever she finds them, all over the world.
	Nov. 21 You can’t really see them in the dusk (unless you click the photo to see the HUGE view), but those are wild horses grazing in the park. They say if you catch a wild horse you can keep it.
	Nov. 22 We drive out west, towards Green Beach . A cow on the road. They say if you catch a wild cow …
	Nov. 22 Now and then you see these huge wasp nests on trees. We tended to photograph these from a safe distance.
	Nov. 22 The ladies swin in the Bio- Luminescent Bay . There are no words to describe this. It’s a bay filled with microscopic orgnanisms that light up when you touch them. It’s like diamonds.
	Nov. 22 On the way back from the Bio- Luminescent Bay the driver stops to pick up a hermit crab, which gets passed back to Megan.
	Nov. 24 Adam turns up and we go back to Sun Beach
	Nov. 24 Action sequence. Adam and Megan are neck deep in the water. Megan is wearing flippers. They decided to race to the garbage can on the beach. Adam is already reaching the beach. Megan, far behind, gamely races up the beach in flippers.
	Nov. 25 Megan dozes on the ferry as we sail across to the main island to see the El Yunque rain forest. Obviously exhausted from yesterday's race. It takes an hour on the ferry to get from Vieques to Fajardo on the main island: two dollars one-way.
	Nov. 25 The money shot from the El Yunque interpretive center.
	Nov. 25 There’s a tower in the El Yunque rain forest. This is what you see from up there.
	Nov. 25 The group on top of the tower in the El Yunque rain forest (l. to r. Brian, Megan, Audrey, Rita, Adam)
	Nov. 25 A babbling brook in the El Yunque rain forest.
	Nov. 26 We take the ferry across to the main island in the early morning to visit the native village reconstruction in Ponce. To the left is a lobsterman returning with the morning’s catch (and Megan’s head in the foreground). They had a big bunch of seriously huge lobsters. (Below Left) The Vieques lighthouse from the ferry as we leave in the morning.
	Nov. 26 (Above Right) The Vieques skyline from the ferry. The blue building is a bar/restaurant, open seven days a week except Thursdays, and only serving food on weekends. We tried to eat there twice. Never did. (Left) The Vieques cargo ferry. You can take your car across, if you don’t get bumped.
	Nov. 26 A reconstructed native hut at the archaeological dig in the Ponce area.
	Nov. 27 The Vieques skyline from the fort on the hill. This is our last day in Vieques, so we keep a low profile, and an eye out for photo opportunities.
	Nov. 27 Action sequence: Megan and her Dad decide it is time to catch a lizard and after several attempts (and Hector's help), they succeed. "Crikey," Megan says, "look at this beauty!" Then Megan is tempted to stray from her vegetarian diet, but eventually the lizard is released back into the jungle.
	Nov. 27 We venture out to Green Beach, on the very west end of the island.
	Nov. 27 We’re driving out from one of the beaches and spy a shell dump. This is weird. There are several hermit crabs scuttling around, but most of these shells have paint on them. We are mystified.
	Nov. 27 We’re in the Green Beach area and scare up several crabs and we chase them around taking pictures. Rita’s flip-flop is offered for scale.
	Nov. 27 One of the beaches in the Green Beach area.
	Nov. 27 Adam on the shores of the Caribbean, in the Green Beach area.
	Nov. 27. The children, lost in a mangrove forest on our last day.
	Nov. 27. A scary mangrove tree in the scary mangrove swamp.
	Nov. 27. Green Beach money shot (Rita took a photography class). (Below Left) We actually snorkel whenever we can, it's too much man. This is an action shot as Brian descends to the ocean floor. (Below Right) The last shot on the roll, Brian and Rita in an underwater self-portrait.
	Nov. 27. The sort of junk you find littered all over the beach.
	Nov. 27. If you've had the patience to scroll this far, you are to be "rewarded". Click on the image to the left, and the secret of our 2002 Christmas photo will be revealed.
	Nov. 28. They are really nice at the Seagate. The maids left us flowers the last day we were there.
	Nov. 28. Thanksgiving morning, the army and its luggage is on the march.

Modified: 7Dec02, 11Dec02; Contact: bslator@cableone.net