Guilligan's Island

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this tropic port,aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailin' man,the skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day,for a three hour tour, a three hour tour………The weather started getting rough,the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew,the Minnow would be lost; the Minnow would be lost. The ship took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,with Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire, and his Wife, the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan's Isle.

Well, we had yet another weekend on our little island paradise. This past weekend it was even more literally a little island. We went to Guanica on Friday night with some other teachers where we rented an apartment from the father of another teacher and spent the weekend on Guilligan's (that's how they spell it here) Island. We didn't see any Skippers or Movie Stars but we do have our very own Gilligan. The first picture is Guilligan's Island from the front porch of our apartment. Here we are Saturday morning loading up to go catch the ferry. We loaded up all 8 of us in the little truck complete with beach gear and a kayak. The Casa Benny 5 rode in the back. I sat on the tailgate and Courtney say in the kayak...really he got us there. We climbed aboard a ferry minus Angel & Clate because they decided to kayak their way to the island. Angel owns his own kayak and Clate rented one. Katie & I wanted to do that but since neither one of us has before we decided it wasn't a wise idea. The ferry ride took about 10 minutes. The island wasn't that crowded when we arrived so we were able to find a nice place to put our things near the water. This place was much like Mata la Gata so Courtney swam. In fact, he stayed in the water with the rest of us ALL day. It's the most he's been in the water since we arrived! We swam over into the mangroves surrounding the island and all of the men (boys?) climbed trees and jumped in. Courtney's favorite was, you guessed it, cannonballs! Here's a picture of me, Katie, and Janette, another teacher at our school. Janette brought her son, Martin, along for the weekend as well as her pug, Choco. We had 8 people and 5, yes 5, dogs! We spent the entire day Saturday in the water. We played a game of water football and, unfortunately, the boys won. It was really difficult to "run" in the water. I also had a "wardrobe malfunction" for the majority of the game. I bought a strapless swimsuit to wear down here so I wouldn't have tan lines. Well...the game got rough and several time my top came down. I don't know for sure, but I think Martin saw my who-whas at least once. Eventually Angel gave me his shirt that he had been wearing in the water so I didn't have to keep stopping to pull my top up. We finished up at Guilligan's just before the rain came and went to the apartment to get showered. We didn't do much that evening, ate dinner and hung out. We got up Sunday morning, went to get breakfast and decided to do some exploring. We found another beach that had beautiful sand, water, and rocks. I luckily had my camera with me and Angel told Courtney & I to climb the rocks. We did, very interesting to watch I might add, and he took our picture. You can tell from our picture that we had literally crawled out of bed and went to get breakfast. I wasn't looking my best, I would have to say! While we were there we saw a little crab running around. Angel wanted to catch it so we all started helping him try to stop it. Courtney and Brent were running by it putting their foot down so it wouldn't move anymore and that's when it happened....Courtney stepped, shall we say, a little too close and SMASH. No more crab! He did end up catching one and got it to puff it's eyes up so we could see them. He said if we stay at the beaches late enough you can see hundreds of crabs crawling up & down the shore. Maybe we'll do that some time. We then went to an old lighthouse on the side of the mountain. It was pretty interesting. We got out and walked right up to it. It's falling apart and there's graffiti all over it. The stairs were gone so we couldn't get up to the top. That would have made for some interesting pictures! After the lighthouse we went back to the apartment to pick up everyone else. We then decided to spend the day at the public beach nearby. We did that until 2:00 in the afternoon and then drove home. All in all it was a great weekend. We had a lot of fun getting to know the other teachers even better. It's so nice to be making such great friends down here. It will be sad to leave them when we're done here but at least we'll have people to come visit! Today was just another day at school...well sort-of. this morning my kids started freaking out. They were screaming and yelling and jumping on desks. I was like, "What is your problem?" They kept saying there was a "worm with a tail and legs" crawling under my desk. I asked if it was a lizard...no. I asked if it was a snake...no. Anyone know what a worm with a tail and legs is? We went to snack recess and I left my door open hoping it would leave. When we got back one of my brave girls crawled under my desk. She moved a paper that was down there and said it was under a poster tube that was there. She moved the poster tube and low and behold there it was....a HUGE centipede! I don't know if you know this or not but those are pretty much the most poisonous things we have here in PR. I went to get Mr. Dill (Brent) because he's right next door. I asked him if he thought I should get Raffa, our maintenance man. He said yes so I did. Raffa came and and I believe his words were, "Oh my God!" He then smashed it with his foot...nasty juices everywhere! I asked if it was poisonous to which he replied, "I think so." How comforting! That was the first one I've seen and hopefully the last! We hope everyone has a great week this week. Please pray for my family as my Grandpa Butler is not doing well. I am hoping above all hopes that he makes it until I come home at Christmas but I am also being realistic. I'll keep you updated on that one...anyway, have a great week and enjoy the pictures of our trip!
Muchos besos!