Our New Year’s Resolution Is…

Hi there Kneedeepers, not only are we acclimated now to tropical weather, we've set our clocks to Atlantic Standard Time and more importantly, to Island Time. As you might expect, that means we're wrapping up 2018 after 2019 has already sailed off out of the harbor. As far as New Years Resolutions go, we don't really believe in them, not for us anyway. We don't think we should wait until some magic date to change our lives, habits, and attitudes. If it works for you that's great, go for it!, but we'll keep trying to make personal improvements throughout the year as we go.

Now that doesn't mean we can't look back on the year and enjoy all the great things we discovered and all the new experiences we had. We tried to document it all with the photos we took, so we thought we'd give you a photo montage of 2018 , the year we finally made it to Vieques, Puerto Rico. (brace yourselves - many, many photos ahead!) We were thrilled to meet lots of new people this year, really great people actually, locals and transplants alike. We also got to watch this island heal from the hurricane first-hand, with our boots on the ground (flip-flops actually). It's been a wonderful experience all year.

IMG_3009

There wasn't as much travel as last year, but it was plenty enough for us. We came from Roatán, Honduras to Puerto Rico (via Miami) to start the year. We also went to Colorado and back for our son's wedding and to visit family and friends.

Of course we found hurricane destruction on this island, some of it pretty devastating. But these island folk are tough and we got to watch (and help a little with) the rebuilding, the rebirth of this island. It's an amazing place for sure.

So in 2018 we've been blessed to experience a new version of rock life on this rock that's new to us. There are many similarities with other islands but this place has a real Puerto Rican flavor, as well as the small town living of Vieques. Vieques is part Spanish-speaking PR, part wild animal preserve, part farm, part Mayberry, part adventure park, and part beach paradise. Also part comedy club - that tsunami sign below is right on the beach, 20 feet from the water...

There were lots of things to keep us busy this year, water activities galore, exploring, and just enjoying life.

Of course our doggies always come along for the ride, as we wrote about here and here.

All year, we met great people, interesting people, loving people, funny people. Many of them even fit all these descriptions at once!

Finally, what is an island blog without water and beaches? We're literally surrounded by this stuff every day, so it's a big part of our lives. Sorry for all these, we took a lot of pictures at the water this year! (also, this is only about 10% of the total) My favorite may be Kirby's "beach hair, don't care" look down below - enjoy!

So the sun sets on 2018, but more adventures await as we charge ahead into 2019. I hope we're ready for them but whether we are or not, we're knee deep in it! And we hope you'll come along for the ride. Prospero Año Nuevo, and don't forget to have some fun every day!

20180403_184050

TODAY'S SPECIAL: "Trip Around the Sun" by our friend Kenny Chesney. Let's take another crazy trip around the sun, shall we?

14 Comments

  1. Kevlar on January 3, 2019 at 11:41 am

    Ahh! A taste of island life in the middle of winter.

    • Norm Pyle on January 3, 2019 at 5:02 pm

      Glad to help with the winter blues. Or maybe it’s not blues, but it’s just nice to dream of warm weather anyway. BTW, we jumped off a pier today and soaked up the warm sun on the dock.

  2. Alouise on January 3, 2019 at 11:44 am

    Love all the beautiful photos. Wonderful smiles! Thanks for sending. Happy New Year!

  3. Anonymous on January 3, 2019 at 12:17 pm

    Happy New Year Deb & Norm! Loved all the photos from your ongoing island adventures. Keep enjoying life to the max in 2019!

    • Norm Pyle on January 3, 2019 at 5:03 pm

      Happy New Year Anonymous! 🙂 We’ll keep trying to bring the adventures your way!

  4. Natasha on January 3, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    Happy New Year!

    • Norm Pyle on January 3, 2019 at 5:04 pm

      Happy New Year Natasha, thanks for the tip on Mailchimp which I finally implemented.

  5. Betty Sr on January 3, 2019 at 5:00 pm

    Awesome. Keep being happy in 2019 and I’ll try to do the same.

  6. E Lou Bjorgaard Probasco on January 3, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    Beautiful photos and such an accurate reflection of VQS. Missed running into you all, next time.

    • Norm Pyle on January 4, 2019 at 10:24 am

      Thanks a lot Lou, catch you next time!

  7. Perry on January 4, 2019 at 11:11 pm

    You had me at “Hanz the Golden”. I have a soft spot for retrievers. They can be trained to NOT munch the waterfowl, in exchange for dog food. Good dog, happy man.

    As a boat operator, I enjoyed the “No Wake” buoy. The Laws of Nature frequently exceed those of men. Last October, Nature nearly pulled the 67′ Wildwind off the dock. Later, the rain flew sideways across the entire front deck. Estimate 40mph sustained. (When the windsock flies upward, it’s hard to estimate.) Let’s just say there was plenty of wake in the No Wake zone.

    Glad to hear you’re doing your small part to clean up the island.

    • Norm Pyle on January 5, 2019 at 7:02 am

      Yes, Hanz the Golden is our grandpuppy or I guess he’s grown into full-on granddog. He’s a good boy!

      You know, we spotted that No Wake buoy on a beach exposed to the open Caribbean, nowhere near any port, dock, etc. In fact, there really aren’t any No Wake zones around here as far as I know. It could have come from St. Croix or much, much farther away, for all we know. As I think about it, it was probably broken off during one of the 2017 hurricanes by a large boat that was also “freed” by the storm.

Leave a Comment