Puerto Rico - Day 5 - "Surfing" Day

We woke up early and headed off to the beach in Rincon - a small surfers paradise on the western coast of the island. Upon arriving in town (and after a scary encounter going the wrong way on a one way road), we ate breakfast at a small cafe in town. From there, we drove down to the beach strip and found a surf shop to rent a board for the day. Dana had decided that she wanted a lazy day of drinking and relaxing on the beach, but Adam and I were going to surf. Well...at least I was going to attempt to surf. Even though it was early in the morning, the beach was crowded and there was at least one pro surfer catching some waves. I let Adam take the board out first well Dana and I strung up a clothes line to let our clothes air out a bit....nothing like the smell of caving clothes.


After a while Adam came back into shore and it was my turn to "surf". I had never been surfing before and the decent sized waves and the fact that there was a reef that I would be surfing over was more than enough to freak me out a bit. Adam decided that he would come float out there with me in one of our River Rat tubes so the two of us starting swimming out pass the break. About 4 falls off the board later (Adam had neglected to tell me to duck under the waves) I finally made it out past the break. Adam had explained how to pop up on the board, but I was definitely nervous! Adam was looking for the perfect wave for me to catch when all of a sudden one decided to catch me instead. The wave propelled me forward in the water at a MUCH faster speed than I had anticipated and by the time I was ready to stand up...I realized that I was directly over the reef and there was NO way that it was going to happen. I rode the wave all the way into shore and called it a day. It would be drinking and relaxing on the beach with Dana for me that day. :)


Dana was already a bit toasty so I joined in on the rum punch drinking and watched the surfers do their thing. After a while Adam was done for the day and joined in on the festivities. Since our New Years Eve Celebrations had been a little on the tame side, we decided that this would be our party night. :)


We decided that the beach equaled fancy dinner time, so we hit up a great seafood restaurant followed by my favorite drinking shack in the world. A tiny shack right along the beach strip with about 6 bar stools, no refrigerator, $3 rum punches, and a scary guard dog named Princess was perfect for a couple rounds of drinks. After our drinks we went to scope out a premium camping spot on the beach and we broke out our bottle of champagne that had been purchased earlier that day. The drinks caught up to me fast and I was the first to crawl into the tent, but not too long after Dana and Adam just laid back on the beach and fell to sleep. An hour or so later I was woken up by Dana frantically yelling at me to wake up. Confused and sleepy I poke my head out of the tent only to see another wave crash right near the tent and over the top of Dana and Adam. Apparently the beach did not have any non tide portion, so after much confused arguing we eventually moved the tent up to a small dirt road that went down from the parking lot....and went back to sleep.