February 7th to the 13th, 2010
Puerto Rico was a terrific place to visit for our vacation this year. We stayed in Fajardo at the
Las Casitas Villas Resort and is was fabulous. During the week we journeyed to several parts of the Puerto Rico, mostly staying on the North side. Travel in Puerto Rico is very expensive. We were able to find Leslie Melendez to get us where we needed to go for the first couple of days. And he shared with us great places to eat and visit. We rented a car for remainder of week and it was much cheaper. (Though, Lesley gave us a good deal). We might not have learned much about the local cuisine had we not met Lesley.
So here we are at the Las Casitas Resort over looking this wonderful view of the ocean. In view is the Marine where you launch from to take shuttles to islands or diving and snorkeling trips.
Our first day there we just enjoyed the scenery and all the surroundings of Las Castas and start planning out our week. Check-out the hotel on the island in the background.
Just a beautiful view.
In-shore Tarpon fishing trip. We started out at the Marina at 7:00am then navigated over to an area of residential canals to use cast nets to capture our bait for the day. Bait wasn't that plentiful after an hour and half of casting our net. Fortunately, there was another boat with the same company that had bait to spare.
I interviewed
Captain Jeff just after catching our Tarpon an published in our podcast.
We boated over and fished the first 2 Tarpon spot locationions marked on map and drift fished with live greeny's free-lining . Our only catch of day was in Tarpon Spot #3.
FISH ON!
Our only catch of the day was a nice Tarpon that shot up out of the water 3 time trying to shake free from the hook. After some time reeling him in and getting up next to the boat he was able to cut our leader with his sharp gills. Shuck, only "almost" landed catch of the day.
Old San Juan was enjoyable to walk the shops and eat. The brick stone street were very cool and certainly gave a feel that you stepped back in time.
Raices Restaurant, Old San Juan Puerto Rico
I had a Large Pork Chop and Patti had Mofongo. Mofongo is eggplant.
Juan Ponce De Leon who was in seach of the Fountain of Youth. In 1521 Ponch De Leon sailed to West Florida with 200 men when they were attacked by Native Americans with arrows. Ponch was severely wounded and died soon after that. He was buried here at this church in Old San Juan. 1460 - 1521
El Morrow Fortress
Arecibo Observatory
Do you remember the movie "
Contact" with Jody Foster? parts of the movie were filmed here at Arecibo radio telescope.
Camuy Caves
Isabela Beach
Offshore Fishing Trip
Patti & I went of a all day offshore fishing trip. We went a a 40 foot Hatteras which made it nice to enjoy the cabin while we trolled for whatever we could catch. While starting to prepare lunch we had a "FISH ON" experience. A Dorado Dolphin take the bait and run. It was a lot of fun reeling in this bull using every muscle in my body to get him close to the boat.
As we got him close to the boat our deck hand tried to hook him with the gaffe hook. The Dorado made one last attempt to jump in the air to free himself and was successful. Shucks, we lost another one and we wouldn't have another bite the rest of day.
This was a great place to enjoy breakfast in the morning. Breakfast was only about $10 and the food was great! Our resort charged $60 for breakfast so we made a clean break from that to avoid those kind of charges.
Snorkeling was a lot of fun to swim and see that marine life. We took a boat out to one of the islands where we anchored up for a few hours. The water was very nice.
That was our vacation this year to celebrate our anniversary! We certainly enjoyed the whole week and feel like we saw and did a lot. Just Awesome.
