P.R. November 2005

Page 1 - Arrival

Ok then, I guess it’s time to sit down with this stupid computer and do a little writing. Been here in Puerto Rico since last Sunday, and now it’s Wednesday, a week and a half later, and I haven’t written a thing. So sue me. Maybe I’ll sue myself.

Right this second, it’s 2pm local time and I’m sitting on a plastic chair in Tiki Rob’s back yard under the shade of the bean tree, with Chopper, one of Rob’s three mutts, sitting between my feet.

Ok, forget Chopper, he just rambled off somewhere else.

Temperature: 82. Wind is out of the north at about ten knots, a little light for around here in the tradewind belt. Sunshine over my shoulder, blocked by the tree. Pretty damn pleasant up here on the hill, about eight hundred and fifty feet up, and more or less equidistant from Parking Lot’s, Dome’s, and Tres Palmas.

Yesterday, the wind basically failed to blow all day long, and coupled with the nice head high to occasionally well overhead lines, it made for a fine surfing day. I didn’t surf myself, because I’d surfed for the previous nine days in a row and was feeling a trifle used, but more because it was Lisa’s last day down here and I had a long drive ahead of me to take her across the island to San Juan and put her safely on an aeroplane, and then return here. In the morning, Lisa surfed Maria’s while I sat on the beach and watched. But I’m getting ahead of myself here perhaps, and I think I’m gonna back up a bit and start in on that.

This trip was arranged several months ago, using the first half of the advance payment for My Wave, a book that’s already written and sent to the publisher. That’s nice, but things seem to have hit a snag and the second half of the advance which was to be paid by November first didn’t show, and there’s been an ominous silence from Lyons Press for the past month. Missing the second half of the advance payment has me in a cash flow bind, and from the looks of things, I’m not going to make it all the way to December fifteenth as originally planned, but instead may be returning as early as the middle of next week. Boo hoo. Poor me. Only two weeks and a half in a tropical paradise, made to order for surfers. More on that in a bit. (Author’s note, September 2006, nearly a full year later: My Wave bit the dust after I refused to go along with the clumsy and child-like editing attempts by the morons at Lyons Press, none of whom surf, none of whom understand the slightest thing about surfing, and all of whom were put into a terror by the their legal department over the parts of the book that dealt honestly and forthrightly about getting into fights in the lineup. And, while we’re at it here, whatta ya say we let’s not even get into the clownishly retarded editing remarks from Christine Duffy, my doofus editor at Lyons, regarding Kelly Slater, shall we? It was supposed to be a book, written BY a surfer, FOR surfers, but Lyons’ attempts to eviscerate the manuscript, coupled with threats to have it ghost-written, caused me to advise them to shove it up their collective assholes, and the book never happened.)

Flew from Orlando with Lisa and arrived here in the late afternoon of the aforesaid Sunday, just the two of us. We were supposed to have a third member in our little party, but he made a last minute change in his plans and we arrived without him. Me and Lisa had decided to spend the evening in San Juan, to avoid my having to drive us out of San Juan, and all the way across PR to Rincon in the middle of the night. This seemed prudent, given that I’d never flown into San Juan in my life, and had no idea how to get around the island. I’ve been here once before (My very first surf trip to a destination in the Atlantic Basin, this one being my very second. I always seem to wind up in the Pacific Basin somewhere when I travel for waves, but I’m starting to get smarter in my old age. Maybe.) two years ago for a short stay, and don’t really know the place very well at all.

So anyhoo, we manage to get off the plane in one piece and further manage to find the rent-a-car place and get a car, and Lisa volunteers to sleep in the car if need be as way of inducement to get us the hell out of San Fucking Juan, soonest. Big ugly city. What else can you say? Seen one, you seen ‘em all. I’m no lover of massive hives of swarming humanity, so getting away from San Juan immediately seems like a good idea to me.

It’s dark before we get the boards and baggage into the minivan, so navigating out of here through the intermittent rain is going to be interesting.

Lisa has a completely unfounded faith my abilities to find my way around, and says, “Go for it.”

So we go for it.

And, impossibly, dark and rain notwithstanding, we hit the all the right expressway exits and ramps, take the proper tunnel, and find ourselves on good old route 22, the “autopista.” I know it’s the right road, ‘cause I saw it on Google maps when I looked this place up a couple of weeks ago, and for some reason it sorta stuck in my memory. Lucky me. I do not have my Google map, or anybody else’s map with me now, and am flying blind aside from knowing that I want to always be headed west.

Autopissedoff might be a better name for it, but it’s an expressway no matter what you call it and we’re zooming “oeste” (Pronounced “west-eh” like maybe a Latino Canadian might say it for those of you who are new to this sort of español kind of thing.) through invisible terrain on a road that dips and turns, rises and falls, and generally keeps its own council on things. And oh yeah, don’t forget the rain. On and off, and sometimes VERY on. I’m squinting into a phantasmagoria of mostly incomprehensible road signs, with only the vaguest idea of where I’m supposed to be going.

I do know that San Juan is on the north coast of Puerto Rico, almost all the way over on the east end of the island, and I also know our destination is all the way over on the other side of the island, and down a little to boot.

I’ve stayed at Tiki Rob’s before, once, for a couple of weeks, two years ago.

Unfortunately, other people were driving the whole time during that stay, and as anybody who has attempted to memorize roadways from the passenger seat, or back seat, of a moving vehicle will attest, not much of any real use goes into memory when it comes to a feel for where things are and how you get to one place or another.

Through the dark we zoom, stopping for occasional toll plazas, and at least one time getting lost in the toll plaza and discovering too late that we were going to be funneled through the e-toll lane and then doing just that, to the harsh sound of an unhappy buzzer as we blew through the thing doing sixty, trying not to get run over from behind by some impatient driver on the way to somewhere important. Nervous glances in the rear-view for oncoming police eventually fade away as more pressing immediate matters impose themselves upon me, one after the other, in an unending series.

There goes the salida (exit) for the observatory at Arecibo. Since I was a kid, and learned of its construction, I’ve always wanted to stare down at that insanely gargantuan dish, but not this time. On we go.

Finally, the autopista comes to a halt, and we find ourselves on route 2, still headed oeste-bound, but now pushing through anonymous little Puerto Rican towns, complete with traffic lights, impatient fellow drivers, road construction, and a host of other cheerful distractions.

We make an emergency stop, and eat at a hated McDonald’s. Lisa loathes and detests the stuff, and so do I, but we’re getting hungry and do not know where the drive will end, nor what may be had when we get there.

On we go again, looking hopefully for signs that say “Aguadilla” or maybe “Rincon.”

I flew in to Aguadilla on my last trip over, and know it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of Rincon, where we’re going. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to drive from Aguadilla to Rincon, other than the fact that it can be done, and shouldn’t take all that long if done correctly.

Hours of roadway done and gone and finally a sign says “Aguadilla.”

The promised land.

We’ve somehow made it clear across the island in the dead of night, without the slightest knowledge of how we did it, or what we need to do now.

As we enter Aguadilla, there’s an intersection and route 2 heads off southbound, in the direction of Mayaguez, which I know to be PAST Rincon, so at least I’m still headed more or less in the right direction.

Not for long.

Straining my eyes into the gloom and bright lights, looking for something, ANYTHING, familiar, I decided to exit route 2 and return to a more westerly heading, hoping for a sign that says Rincon on it.

No sign.

Lost.

Into the narrow streets of Aguadilla we go, completely without a clue as to what road we’re on, nor where it’s taking us.

Lisa remains stoically faithful in her belief that I’ll somehow pull us through, against all odds and against all reason.

Fifteen minutes of door handle-scrapingly narrow streets, and I spy about three cop cars, and several cops, apparently lounging around waiting for a perpetrator to start perpetrating on somebody.

So I drive right over next to the closest cop, roll down the far window, and say in the best-accented Spanish I can deliver, “Habla Inglés?”

The cop replies with a cheery “I speak English.”

Hallelujah.

I present our predicament and our desired destination to the bemused smiles of Aguadilla’s Finest, and when I’m done, the gentleman I’d been talking to says, “We’ll escort you to road 115, and from there you can drive until you get to the intersection of road 413.” Tiki Rob lives directly on 413, and if I can find that very small winding road, I can also find Rob. Without doubt.

 The cop walks back over to one of his fellow officers and waves us over to the side of the road to await our “escort.”

And a fine escort it is!

The second cop drives around ahead of us and fires up his light bar, and we’re off and running, with a blindingly brilliant display of blue and white strobes directly ahead of us, as we speed through the narrow byways and alleys of Aguadilla.

Too cool!

On and on we go. The brilliance of the cop’s lights flashing directly in front of my still disbelieving eyes has more or less blinded me and I just twist and turn right along with the cop, riding his rear bumper through town. At some point we take a left turn along a roadway and the ocean is suddenly right there beside us, right outside Lisa’s passenger side window as we cross a bridge and continue along the oceanfront pavement. My mind harks back to hearing of a surfspot named “Bridges” in Aguadilla, and I wonder if I just crossed the that very bridge.

And there’s white water plainly evident in the flickering gloom.

Waves.

Neato.

A left turn takes us right back into the depths of the alleys and byways of Aguadilla and finally, at long last, the cop approaches a sign with the magic letters “115” emblazoned upon it.

The cop pulls over, lights still aflash, and we roll past him with a wave and a honk of the horn.

Well if this is any indication at all, then the people down here are going to be a pleasure to deal with. Nice. Very very nice.

No worries now, we’re on our way.

Out of Aguadilla, and into Aguada, last town before Rincon. And it’s a small town, at that.

And of course, now that I’m this close to my objective, I find a way to get lost in the depths of Aguada. In the middle of the night, still.

Shit.

Driving slowly along the pockmarked alley we’ve gotten ourselves on, we endure it for another quarter of an hour and finally decide to pull over and ask for help. Again.

No cops this time, only a seedy bar with a few folks out front.

I pull over into an open parking spot, intending to walk over to one of the gentlemen loitering without the bar, and discover that there’s a lovely young lady in the passenger seat of the car immediately to my left, with her window rolled down.

“Habla Inglés?”

“Poco.” (a little)

So ok, we’ll try our best.

I ask where 115 is and she confidently tells me to continue on the alley we were taking, and then “Turn left.”

I ask her what road we are presently on.

“This road?”

“Si. The road we are on right here.”

“I don’t know.”

Oog. A little less than fully confidence inspiring.

So I thank her kindly and get back in the car, and it’s off we go, in search of the “left turn” we’re supposed to take.

And, amazingly enough, after a kilometer or two the street we’re slowly jouncing along encounters the ocean and dead ends into a “T” intersection. So I go left, as instructed.

On and around we go, with the ocean on the passenger side of the car, and brilliant planet Venus occasionally peeking through gaps in the clouds. Venus is my best friend, because if I can keep it in front of my windshield, low in the sky, I know with confidence that I’m headed west or southwest. A good direction to be headed in as I feel my way through the night, searching for a place that is very near the westernmost point on the whole island of Puerto Rico.

The road suddenly switches back leftward, away from the coast.

A bit of that, and another “T” intersection with a equally small unmarked road. No buildings, no streetlights, no nothing. At the turn, if I go left again, I’ll be headed east. If I go right, west. No brainer. West it is.

More blind driving, under overhanging trees, alone with the road and the dark.

And then, as if by magic, a roadsign appears ahead, and goddamned if it doesn’t say 115!!!

Incredible!

I have somehow managed to rearrive on the very stretch of pavement I had been looking for ever since becoming lost in Aguada. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night.

It’s always better to be lucky than smart, right?

Laughing like children, we sail through the night on an unknown road, looking for an intersection with the holy grail of 413.

And after a couple of miles, there it is!!

And finally, for the first time on this whole damned loony drive, I’m in familiar territory. We’ve caught the “back” entrance to the road to Rob’s place. In the direction away from the surf.

And wind gleefully along our best friend 413, past narrow curves and even smaller roads branching off to the sides, and finally we’re there!

The driveway to Rob’s, beneath my everlastingly grateful rented tires.

It’s ten pm, and we’ve been driving for four straight hours.

Rob is home, and has heard us.

Out he comes and hellos all around.

“I can’t believe I found your place!”

“I can’t believe you found it either.”

Get the car up into the yard and close the gate so the dogs don’t wander off

Rob is kindness personified and leads us gently to the room and then very graciously allows us to decompress on our own, prior to falling soundly asleep.

There will be waves to ride in the morning, and that’s enough for the both of us.

Ahhhhhhh.