Changes to the Landscape of Rincon

Bienvenido, local traffic regulator

It seems like there are so many new construction projects around town.  The biggest is a town-home style development near the marina, a small cul de sac of attached 2 level homes that makes me wonder, why are there no balconies facing west where the sunsets and ocean are.  Who designed these?  Across from this development which looks to be almost complete, a lot has been cleared for a new development on the 413 at the marina.  This new development is supposedly a hotel, but that's just a rumor so far.
Down our street, a small house has cropped up with really bright red shutters.  It sits on a quiet side street overlooking the River Mouth, nicely designed, all concrete, but with some interesting features.
Right behind us, the old cock fighting buildings have been torn down and the lot leveled.  It is a beautiful lot with views of all of Aguadilla Bay, rumor is that they are planning on building a new cock fighting coliseum on the site, oh joy!
The 2 large villas being built near Maria's and Dogman's Beaches are getting close to being complete.  I believe the one at Marias is going to be apartments, and the one at Dogman's looks similar, very large with multiple units on multiple levels.
There has also been a lot of clearing and moving of dirt on the hill behind the post office, no word on what the plans for that are.
Being fairly new to Rincon, I can't be too critical of these developments, they bring much needed jobs  to the area and probably increase property values, but I do wonder if they will all be occupied with so many other developments just sitting around almost empty or even worse, incomplete.  The huge Costa Azul development in Aguada has 2 huge towers, nearly complete, but no work has been done on them for months.  Another development on the 413 near the 115 at Pineapple Hill sits nearly complete, but no construction crews have been there for months as well. The condos near the balneario and the Sea Beach Apartments on the 115 haven't sold, so where and when will the buyers for these projects come?
Meanwhile, still many lots and houses for sale in Puntas.  No water or electrical outages yet this season so overtaxing of the utilities doesn't really apply as an argument against new construction anymore.  The roads are still small and there is still no traffic signals in Rincon, of course our local traffic regulator, Bienvenido and his whistle help, but with all these new developments around town is that the city of Rincon's solution?

Updates in Rincon and Beyond

This is the first post in awhile, but I do plan on more regular updates.  I've been busy with a website called SurfWestPR.com that is a "online guide to surfing Western Puerto Rico".  After being here more than a year, I realize how much this town and especially the "gringo" population, but certainly not only them, rely on tourism for their livelihood.  Whether they have vacation rentals or a catering company or surf school, the majority of their business is tourists and the past few years have been difficult ones as the number of people coming to Puerto Rico and the amount they spend have been representative of the economy as a whole; cautious spending and lots of job losses.

I also realize not a lot of businesses here are represented on the internet and after reading so many articles about how the future of travel starts with www, it makes sense to gather some of these businesses in one spot online. The great surfing is the most unique thing about this part of the island and definitely its biggest attraction, but it isn't limited to Rincon.  Isabela and Aguadilla have amazing surf spots as proved by the success of the recent Rip Curl Live Search at Middles Beach in Isabela.  So businesses can buy a listing and be found and travelers can know where to rent a board or surf in Aguadilla or Isabela.  Helpful to both, I hope.

Meanwhile, in Rincon Surfrider has a new Chair, he is Jim Crotty a surf photographer based in Aguada who has been active with Surfrider Rincon for some time.  Wes Merten, the previous Chair did a great job, steering  the Rincon Chapter to being ratified in November.  I look forward to working with Jim and the rest of the Surfrider Executive Committee in the coming months.  Remember Surfrider has its monthly meeting the first Thursday of every month at 7pm at Club Nautico at the Black Eagle Marina in Rincon and everyone is invited.
The surf season started off great with  a few nice swells early and the beaches at Maria's and Domes jumping with energy as locals and out of towners took advantage of the great waves, warm water and stoked vibes running through the town.  Someone told me he felt Maria's is like the battery of Rincon, it is where the energy comes from and the surfers feed off it and send it back on shore to everyone else and I get that now, the surf, the sunsets, Calypso and Playa Marias at this time of the year, there's no where else I'd rather be. 

Season's Around the Corner....

I've been away from Blogspot for awhile, working on other projects, so here's a few updates...
The hurricane season has been very kind to PR, so far, Earl brought a lot of wind and our power was out for about 24 hours, but for the most part Rincon didn't suffer much damage.  I know a few people had their power out for quite awhile 4, 5 days in some cases and that is a concern as the storm wasn't a direct hit, what's gonna happen when we get one that hits us head on?  There were lots of palms down on Corcega Beach and lots more erosion on all the beaches, but that's what storms do.

Igor went north of the island, but brought some fantastic surf to Rincon and all of the west coast beaches.  I hadn't seen Tres Palmas break like everyone says it can, but Igor brought it out.  See the picture above.  Not a surfer, I was able to get some nice photographs though.  Hopefully this is just the start of a big surf season.

People are starting to trickle back into town, the "snowbirds" who move between the states and here, you can see it on the roads and restaurants and bars.  I know the economy is everyone's minds these days and things are no different here in Rincon.  I have seen some new construction, most notably a townhome project near the marina and what looks like an apartment building down the street from our house.  Like most vacation destinations, Rincon is struggling to draw the amount of tourists it had a few years ago and businesses who thought those times would last forever will fall by the wayside.

When we came here last year I was surprised at how many businesses were for rent in the plaza.  This past year we lost 2 more, West Coast Surf Shop and Ice Chill n Grill.  Superfoods, an organic market and deli a few miles away in the Pueblo may be closing or up for sale and The Spot, a restaurant in the marina has closed with a new owner hopefully taking over. 

On a good note, there is a new Thai restaurant opening in Puntas called Ode to the Elephants and Club Nautico, in the marina has been remodeled and has much improved food done by the people who own the Shipwreck. Surfrider has moved their offices above and Rincon Sailing has set up shop there as well. The Black Eagle Marina will benefit from these moves, in fact already has as Surfrider has focused on cleaning it up and planting new trees. (see video here)  But I would really like to see our town Plaza revived.  The renovations completed a few years ago are being wasted by a lack of use, especially during the evenings.  More restaurants, art galleries, live music and events in the plaza will help change the perception of the downtown area of Rincon, but we need business owners willing to set up shop and we need a government that will work to bring them here.

The Rip Curl Pro Search Surfing contest is coming to either Isabela or Aguadilla at the end of October and will bring great recognition to the west coast of Puerto Rico.  Rincon may have been able to draw on its own history, beaches and surf in the past, but to survive as a tourist destination this town need to ride on someone else's coattails for awhile, be it Aguadilla or Isabela and while we're at it, let's pair up and promote all 3 towns as a destination for surfers, beach goers and people seeking a Caribbean experience without a passport.  The Porta del Sol, is how the folks at the Puerto Rican Tourism Company is marketing this area of the island and that's great, but their marketing dollars are spread between the other areas of the island as well, I suggest a tourism organization centered on these towns that have similar offerings and cater to similar travelers.  Maybe a good idea, but like most things nothing that will get done unless someone leads the charge....

One year in Rincon...

Hard to believe, but it's been over a year since Cynthia and I packed the dogs up and settled into our nice little house here in paradise. The first few weeks here were the hardest due to a lack of creature comforts such as refrigerator and tv, but it's great to look around and see how far we've come in just a this year. I just finished the new cabinets in the kitchen and soon I can start to focus on the landscape. Our web design business, 413 Geek, has grown more than either of us could have expected and Cynthia has almost got this surfing thing figured out. ;)
As I write this, we are expecting our first hurricane of the year, Hurricane Earl, to bounce just off the north coast of Puerto Rico. We've done as much as we can to prepare, but we don't have a generator or even a large backup water tank so we hope a direct hit won't come. I installed hurricane proofing for our large sliding window doors last year and we have about 20 gallons of drinking water and a 25 gallon tank of grey water for showers and the toilet. I don't want to buy a generator, eventually I'd love to have a solar battery backup just to run the fans and a computer or 2. Ah, another project.
The water is another issue. I can collect the rain runoff into our 25 gallon tank, but eventually we will need to buy a 200 gallon tank. Then hooking it to collect runoff and to use gravity for it to flush toilets and run a shower if we need to. For a storm situation, the water could be off for 2 weeks, if we can collect runoff we won't be reliant on the city to come around with the water truck. As far as the house goes, it's all concrete and once we get the hurricane panels up, no windows are exposed. We;re also high above the beaches so a large swell shouldn't be an issue either.
There haven't been many storms to directly hit Puerto Rico, the last being Hurricane Georges in 1998 that was the first to pass through the entire island since 1932. It sounds like it was pretty devastating, mostly on the eastern coast, but damage throughout the island. I'm sure another one will hit eventually, maybe sooner rather than later considering the climate changes of the past decade. Our friend, Beth Kramer is coordinating an emergency preparedness workshop with government help to start in September. Cynthia and I will be in the classes for 3 consecutive Fridays, learning how to help our town in the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise. When it comes, we would like to be fully prepared, but hard decisions must be made on how we spend our money. For this hurricane season, we will prepare to be self-sufficient for a 10 day period and rely on neighbors and friends if we need more, next year I hope to be writing about our 200 gallon water tank and solar battery system and to be of some help should our neighbors or friends need it.

Rincon Off-Season

The mangos are everywhere, the flamboyans are bursting red and the beaches, roads and bars are quiet ,it must be the off-season.  We got here in August of last year and enjoyed the relatively empty beaches, not much surf, but perfect for us beginners to paddle out.  Sandy Beach is great this time of year as hardly anyone is out and the water is calm, with a few small sets here and there. 

We spent some time at Finca Cielo Verde today, our friend's farm in the hills east of Mayaguez. The drive was up then down, through the winding roads with canopys of green and mangos along the side of the streets.  It's a beautiful property with a small creek and waterfall running through it, amazing trees everywhere and a large working vegetable farm.  They grow organic vegetables and have started potted landscape plants as well.  We took home a few colorful additions to our gardens.

We've spent some quality time in Aguadilla lately as one of our friends moved there.  The beaches I've seen are beautuful with rock formations and small private coves and of course the surfing up there can be better than Rincon.  110 Thai is a busy restaurant in Aguadilla that we finally checked out on Cyndi's birthday.  The food was so fresh and reasonably priced and they have some really good beers on draft, definitely rates a return visit, but they do get very busy so if you're going, go early.  I've been golfing at the Aguadilla Golf Course more often and enjoying it more and more.  The fees are relatively cheap and while I haven't been golfing very long, the course offers some beautiful views and is challenging but not intimidating.

The rain has started kicking in, bringing a cool late afternoon storm almost daily, washing away the heat and flamboyan petals.  This is the time of year when the jungle can overcome all efforts to keep it at bay and Cyndi has been using the weed wacker and shovel to keep our hillside lean and mean, but I can see the vines crawling faster and faster, I need a more permanent solution.


I went to the pulgaro in San Sebastian which is held every Friday afternoon.  It's a good sized flea market with vendors mostly selling fruits and vegetables, but you can find tools, clothes, plants, and livestock there as well.  I bought some banana palm bones for planting, some incredible organic tomatoes (hard to find good ones here) and some yucca root to cook.

Lots of friends leaving or already left.  Some find the summer just too lifeless around here, other leave to make money elsewhere.  This summer should be different though, the Mayaguez 2010 Games are being held at the end of July and 3 events are being held in Rincon.  This is the Caribbean and South American Olympics and they expect a huge influx of people.  Should make for an interesting summer!

Plastic Free Oceans

Yesterday we went to a news conference at the Villa Cofresi announcing the start of a standup paddle board journey around the island of Puerto Rico to raise awareness of the problem of plastics and their growing mass in the oceans around Puerto Rico.  Here's a link to their website:  http://plasticfreeoceanpr.org/index.php/?option=com_content&view=article&id=62   So happy to see a local getting local kids and communities involved in this issue.  At the news conference, Ernie Alvarez spoke of his journey to come and what he hoped to accomplish, the plight of sea turtles stuck in plactic bags and a growing sea of plastic out there in the ocean that surrounds us.  Our friends Angelo Cordero and Katka Konecna will accompany him to photograph and film the journey as well as the news conferences along the way.  They will raffle off a brand new ARK paddle board at the end on June 5th and are selling t-shirts and reusable grocery bags to help fund their "Challenging the Ocean to Save the Ocean" campaign.
     The plastics issue has been gaining ground lately, there have been a number of documentaries detailing the plastic soup running hundred of miles swirling around the Pacific Ocean.  One of the most interesting facts that I learned recently:  PLASTIC NEVER DIES, every piece of polyethylene plastic manaufactured since the 1930's when it was first made is still around!!  So  these statistics: 

• Number of plastic bags used worldwide each year: 4,000,000,000,000 to 5,000,000,000,000.
• Amount of oil used annually to produce plastic bags: 17,200,000,000 to 21,500,000,000 gallons.
• Number of plastic bags used by Americans each year: 110,000,000,000.
• Amount of plastic bags recycled in the United States in 2006: 2%.
• Amount of plastic used worldwide every year just to bottle water: 1,500,000 to 2,700,000 tons.
• Number of plastic water bottles sold in the United States in 1997: 4,000,000,000
• Nearly eight out of every 10 bottles will end up in a landfill.

end up being pretty scary.

     So what to do.  Using reusable grocery bags is the easiest way to start and I was stoked to see MR. Special, a grocery store in Aguada selling these bags for $.99  Maybe we will see some changes that already afoot in the states come to the island.  I ran across a great website that uses guerilla tactics to raise awareness of the problem of single-use plastic bottles and containers, http://guardiansofthepacific.org/.  They have downloadable stickers that they urge you to glue onto vending machines and anywhere plastic bottles are sold.  A great way for kids to stick it to the man and stick up for a great cause.
     With the bottled water boom kicking into high gear 10 years ago, plastic usage has surged and these ubiquitous bottles have not only contibuted more than their share to the pollution of the oceans, but manufacturing these bottles also creates problems: 

• Producing the bottles for American consumption required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, not including the energy for transportation
• Bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide
• It took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water
• (http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html)

We have a filter on our refrigerator that we change every 6 months and we both have reusable water bottles to take with us.  The Brita Filtered Water Pitcher is also a great way to filter tap water rather than buy bottled.  Also buying milk and juice in cardboard or glass containers will cut back plastic manufacturing.  It's not that hard to really make a significant decrease in your plastic consumption and I think if people know the problems and the easy solutions, it will get done.  The key is to spread the word!

Read more at Suite101: History of Plastic: Facts, Stats, and Recycling Information: The Story of Plastic: Discovery, Invention, and Practical Use http://manufacture-engineering.suite101.com/article.cfm/history-of-plastic-discovery-invention-and-practical-use#ixzz0o6V8MKSu

Crime in Rincon?

There has been a lot of talk lately about a rise in crime in Rincon and while we haven't been here that long, some long term residents have mentioned the increase.  To be sure the crime we are talking about here is not violent, it's mostly just theft and break-ins, in fact I haven't heard of any people being harmed in any way.   But there seems to be no opposition to the fact that crime has increased.  Is it due to economic circumstances, the cut-backs in jobs and spending has obviously made a dent on the Puerto Rican economy as it has everywhere else.  Or maybe, as some residents believe, it is a result of the coming Caribbean Games in Mayaguez and the displaced residents in some of the public housing there to make way for the influx of athletes and attendees of the games, the reason being these poor are criminals and have moved to Rincon.  I must admit I find this to be a stretch.
     Last night we went to a meeting at the Villa Cofresi introducing the new Chief of Police for the Puerto Rico Police Attachment, Capt. Matilde Rodríguez Rivera.  It was an interesting meeting as we learned a lot about our policing system here in Puerto Rico and also a few first hand accounts of the types of crimes occurring in Rincon.    Captain Rivera's first comments seemed to be defensive in nature, but also stating the obvious. To paraphrase; People come to Rincon and think that there is no crime so they can leave their car windows open and items in their cars and on the beach, but this is what invites criminal behavior.  It is up to us as residents to educate our guests that they need to secure valuables.  Part-time residents need to have alarms on their property for when they are gone for extended lengths of time.  Another problem is that victims are often tourists and they usually leave before they can help with the judicial process.
     So her theme was that the police need help to prevent crime, and this is an understandable request.  All the things she said are true, but some of the crimes described by the people attending the meeting didn't fall into that category so there must be more we can do.  At this point in the meeting we learned that there are 2 different police forces in Rincon, the municipal police, which is located on Rt. 115 and is not captained by Matilde Rodriguez Rivera and the State Police, which is and is located near the school on Calle 2.  It turns out, like many overlapping police organizations, the communication between the two police squads isn't very good (a resident next to us said it was due to different political affiliations).  The fact that the Captain admitted this is a surprise and shed light on the fact that although Mayer Bonilla was scheduled to attend, he did not and no one from the municipal police were in attendance either. Captain Rivera promised that if her station was called, 911 or (787)823-2020, she would send an English speaker officer to take the report if requested.
     A Neighborhood Watch program that is popular in other communities was discussed and many of this meetings attendees volunteered to be a part of a similar program for Rincon which would begin in early May.  I think a Neighborhood Watch program would increase communication between the residents, both locals and English speaking, and the police.  Separating facts from rumors will help us see trends in where crime is occurring and hopefully, why. I agree with Captain Rivera that it is as much the responsibility of the people of Rincon to prevent crime as it is the police to catch the perpetrators.   Overall, a productive meeting that may form the basis for a more involved community in the safety of Rincon, it's residents and guests.