Honeymoon: Day 6

We once again woke up to the sound of rain, which according to the locals is odd for this time of year, normally they don't have any rain. I guess we are just lucky. We made coffee and packed up all our stuff before heading heading down to meet Captain Jay at the pier in Esperanza.

We boarded his boat the Amity and headed out to sea. One of the reasons we decided to go deep sea fishing in Vieques is the short distance to the fishing ground. Most places you have an hour ride or more, here it's 100 yards off shore. Within 15 minutes we had our bait in the water and were trolling for fish. The water was purple! It was like nothing I have ever seen and our captain explained that we were in one of the main costal currents.

The first thing we were told to be on the look for was flying fish because they are what the big fish like to eat. I was expecting something that would hop ad skip a few feet out of the water, when I caught a glimpse of theses fish though, I thought they we birds. They shot out of the water and then sailed for up to 100 feet. Natures other helper was the friget, a bird that looks like a Terradactile. It's wing span is 7-8 feet, but it only weighs 3lbs. They see schools of fish from up above and will dive down to grab their prey.

Within the first hour Jason and I had a double catch both some type of small tuna that's not good for eating. They may have been small but they fought like mad. After our first catch we were both pumped and kept our eyes fixed on the back of the boat while the captain continued to steer us around and tell us more about the island and fishing. All of a sudden we saw a fish shoot up 15ft ( not exaggerating) into the air. It was a king mackerel and he was on my line. It took a little while to reel him in, he was stronger than the tuna. Once we got him to the boat Jason took a picture of me with it from the side of the boat and we let it go. After that the fish went biting too much. Jason caught one more fish and then we called it a day.

We ate lunch in Esperanza one last time before heading to the ferry. We already had our return tickets so this trio wasn't as stressful. We were able to board the boat with no problems, this time making sure we weren't in the special passengers line. Once on board we got comfortable and waited for the ferry to head to Fajardo. A little after 3 p.m. a ferry worker came back and made an announcement in rapid Spanish, we must be obvious tourists because he came over and told us in English that there's was a storm in Fajardo and that they were going to wait another 10-15 minutes before pushing off. Those few minutes became an hour then another worker came back made another announcement in Spanish and didn't bother to translate. We assumed it was not good when everyone around us started sitting down and starting out the windows. That's when the fry started to move. It had to back up into the wind and the crashing waves and turn around. The ferry came within 20 feet of hitting a sailboat that I saw, Jason said there was another one that I didn't see that was even closer.

Now this wouldn't have been so scary if a. We could understand what everyone around us was saying and b. Captain Jay hadn't made a comment earlier about the ferry staff not being able to operate the new larger ferry because they couldn't operate it properly and didn't know the proper evacuation procedures. What I realized in the midst of all this was, this was not the same ferry we rode over on and it did seem larger. Thankfully they got the ferry turned around with no damage to the passengers inside and we we're heading for Fajardo at top speed.

Once at the dock, we took a taxi to the El Conquistador Resort. Along the way the taxi driver explained that a tornado had come through with high winds and hail. Tornados never happen on PR so he didn't even know the English word for hail.pulling up to the hotel we saw palm trees that had been snapped in half. It was pretty scary and made me very glad that the ferry had waited as long as it did.

The El Con resort is huge. Huge! They give you a map of the place when you check in, but even that wasn't very helpful. W were pointed in one direction, but soon realized we were not going the right direction. A security guard took pity on us and walked us to the correct wing and elevator At the opposite end of the hotel. While not the best room, it was definitely the best view so far. Our balcony over looked the marina and the ocean. Whenever you went out on the balcony all you could see saw a sea of blue ocean and white clouds.

We tried to go to the pool, but it was a tad too cold. So we started wandering around trying to find all the restaurants instead. We settled on Striphouse for dinner. The atmosphere was great, but the food was subpar and overpriced. We decided to try our luck at the casino and both had moderate luck, but called it quits before we were too much in the hole.