Bello Horizonte

We just returned from a week in Rincon, Puerto Rico.  My son-in-law rented a house with a magnificent view, westward, over the ocean.  This photo was taken from the pool deck and shows the daytime view, which only gets more spectacular at sunset.  The island visible in the distance is Desecheo Island, located about 12 miles from the coast.

 The island is not inhabited and federal law prohibits people setting foot on the island because of the possibility of unexploded military artillery!  It is inhabited by wild goats and is essentially a nature preserve.  They say, though, that it is a great place for scuba diving and snorkeling along the island's perimeter which has lots of protected coves.

The house is called Bello Horizonte, which I assume means "beautiful horizon," due to it's ideal view of the sunset and some very easily identifiable Rincon shore landmarks, including not only the island, but also a large white dome that supposedly was built to be a nuclear reactor.  A clump of trees obscures the Rincon lighthouse.

Anytime I am in a tropical place, I am amazed by the vibrant flowers, and Puerto Rico has that type of climate that encourages lush growth.  The home owners have had Bello Horizonte for over 30 years and they obviously have taken an interest in doing some gardening to encourage lots of beautiful ornamental flowering plants to thrive.  One morning I took some photos of some of the flowers for you to enjoy!  Here they are in no particular order...

Some are easy to identify, like the bougainvillea above and the hibiscus.  Others are not so familiar.  I realize I didn't take any photos of the abundant bananas in the banana trees, but here is a shot of a couple of mangoes that will likely be eaten by a beautiful yellow bird when they are ripe because they are too far up in the tree to harvest.

I came home with a little more sun color from lazy days at the beach and in the pool, some bug bites (I think from tiny mosquitoes that appeared at dusk), some wonderful memories of time spent with my two wonderful grand babies, their parents and Russ, and a desire to return and do it all again!

What I Saw at the Beach!

Whales!

Actually, this was the wallpaper in our hotel bathroom.  I took this picture at night with the light on and the colors came out wrong.  It actually had a white background with little blue and beige whales.  I remembered how much I used to like this simple kind of wallpaper in bathrooms.  Now it seems rather dated, but the hotel was really quite up to date.  It was very comfortable and this was the view I had from our front windows and deck:

It is called "Lighthouse View" and this is the referenced lighthouse:

Hatteras Lighthouse, which is a very pretty lighthouse, but I couldn't actually see it from my deck.  It was about a quarter of a mile away.  Hatteras Light is really in Buxton, NC, about 12 miles north of Hatteras Village which is the very end of the island where the road ends.  

So last Saturday morning, I went to Hatteras Village and walked on the beach.

Here's my selfie to prove I was there.  I saw most of the usual things you see on a beach walk, a few jelly fish, skate pods, not too much human litter, and the shells there were interesting, but fragmented from the surf.

I didn't see even one intact shell the whole time!

There was lots of stuff like this:

I was excited to see the remains of a horseshoe crab:

But then a little ways away there was a whole collection of them that someone had collected and arranged:

This is just a portion of the display.  I guess yesterday's high tide surf was not a good one for horseshoe crabs!

And then it wouldn't be a true beach walk if you didn't come across a fish out of water.  This one had been out of water for a while, but he was still impressive!

I should have stuck my foot in there for reference because this fish head was pretty darn large... I'm saying like 10 inches from snout to gill.  

There were kite surfers on the ocean.  I didn't take any pictures of them, but there were interesting land kites, as well.  I particularly liked this large orange fish kite.

But the best thing that I saw was Russ, finishing his 500 mile bike ride across the state.  Here he is posing by the finish line!

The End!