Culebra

Culebra is a little island about halfway to St. Thomas. When we bought our tickets in the morning, they told us that the return ferry was "conditional." Basically, if the weather turned any worse they would cancel the ferry and we'd be stuck on the island for the night, and Isa would miss her flight back to New York the next morning.

We figured it was worth the risk. :)

The ferry ride over was crazy. The people on the top deck were screaming like they were on a roller-coaster. I thought the boat would flip a few times. Way fun.

The island was gorgeous. We went straight to Flamenco Beach, which apparently is rated as one of the best beaches in the world. I beg to differ, but whatever. What do I know about tropical beaches, right? It was pretty, but one of the best, I don't know.



The coolest part of the beach were the abandoned tanks out on the LEFT side of the beach (not the right, as Isa and I found out when we hiked all the way out past the rocks into the bees nests and found no tanks).



At the end of the day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the water was calmer than a lake, so we had no problem going home:

El Yunque

Yay. Isa came down to visit me. :)

We went out to El Yunque. This is the only tropical rain forest in the US. It was amazing. I've never driven though anything like it before. My favorite part was all the bamboo. I don't think I've ever seen bamboo growing in the wild. It was pretty exciting for me. You know, I'm pretty simple to amuse. :)

We went out and hiked to a waterfall and then continued up (off the trail) along the river. It was fun.


You should watch the video: I swung from a vine over a river just like Tarzan. It was awesome.

Puerto Rico

Woohoo! I love this island! I've only been here a week but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite islands. The people here are great, the energy level is high, and the island is beautiful.

I've been working a lot, but I just went and explored Old San Juan yesterday. I'll post a video on YouTube shortly, but here are some pics to start out with.





This is El Castillo San Felipe del Morro (watch my video about it):







And this is my apartment. Pretty sweet, huh? :)

St. Thomas!!!

I've been offered a lot of positions here, but I turned them all down. I've always wanted to come here, but none of the jobs ever felt right. So finally, thanks to Sky and Steph (remember them from Juneau?) I'm here.

And it feels so good. The second I climbed out of the airplane and the humidity enveloped me I remembered how wonderful it feels to be warm. And sitting here on this balcony looking out over Yacht Haven makes me seriously wonder why I ever left the Caribbean. I do miss New York when I'm gone, but man, I love the Caribbean.

St. Thomas is a crazy little island that is so third-world that I can't believe it's technically a U.S. territory. They have a lot of work to do: no clean water and massive crime being the two most glaring issues.

But overall, I'm loving it. I'm glad I'm just visiting because I don't think I'd like to live here. I'll still take Aruba any day. But St. Thomas is definitely a fun place to be for a while. You can see some of my adventures here: WATCH THIS VIDEO.