Rincon and La Parguera

As busy as we'd kept in Puerto Rico there was one thing we hadn't done a lot of up to this point. We'd barely spent any time on the beach. In order to rectify this situation we planned a trip to the west side of the island for a whale watching/sunset boat ride. It was a couple hour drive to Rincon but we got there early enough to grab lunch at this cool outdoor restaurant.

There was still a little time to kill before we needed to get on the boat so we wandered down to the beach for a little bit. It was a beautiful day and we loved just taking it all in.

Before our trip Patti was telling me about Pinterest and pointed out this one neat idea. I thought it would be cool to do while on our trip. We made our hand prints and placed our rings in the sand for the picture. I'd taken this one and then I wanted to try to get one more. 

I found a spot I thought was good and we made the hand prints again. Our rings were in place once more and I was about to take the picture when the unthinkable happened. Water came up over our rings. We gasped and made a grab for it. I managed to grab Kevin's but my ring was gone. I stared at the spot in disbelief. We were both in shock and I sort of began freaking out. Both of us started looking around and digging in the sand but it seemed pretty hopeless. Two guys that were walking by joined in on the search. I startled rambling things like "It's gone" and "The ocean took it". It was almost time for us to meet up for the boat ride and for some reason I thought we needed to be there. Kevin's thinking slightly more rationally and thinking to himself "there is no way we are going on that boat ride...we're looking for the ring until it gets dark". Since I wasn't of much help he sent me away to tell the boat guys we'd be late. As I was running on the beach I heard Kevin yell "I found it!" My ring was in the sand in the exact spot we put it.  All of this happened in the span of about 3 minutes but it was the longest 3 minutes.

Happy to have my ring back

Now that the ring is safe and sound we can laugh about how stupid the whole thing was. We won't be putting our wedding rings in the sand next to the ocean anytime soon. Thank goodness for heavy metals!

With the crisis over we happily boarded the boat and we were off to find the whales.

Our view heading out to sea

Unfortunately we did not get to see any whales. Apparently they didn't get the memo that we would be there that day waiting for them. Because there are no guarantees on seeing the whales they pair the boat ride up with a sunset cruise so you at the very least get to see that. It was a beautiful day to see the sunset.

I had many good pictures so it was hard to pick. I liked this one though because of the sailboat.

It was a very relaxing ride. There was only one other couple on the boat and the captain and first mate were a really funny duo. 

After the boat ride we headed over to this restaurant right on the beach. It had a great view of the ocean and we really enjoyed taking in the waves.

We'd heard about these coconut drinks on the boat ride and wanted to try them. They cut open the coconuts right there and use the milk to make a drink that they then serve you in the coconut itself. It was a little too sweet for my taste but still fun. We jumped in the water after this and swam for a little bit before rinsing off and heading back to our hotel.

The following day we had to do a little more driving but it was well worth it. We headed to the southwest part of the island to an area called La Parguera. From there we rented a double kayak for the day and headed out to check out a bunch of mangrove islands off the main island. We stopped at a dock off one of the islands to readjust our boat and saw several of these iguana's. 

We were expecting some good snorkeling but we were disappointed. Perhaps there were too many people? It was still beautiful and we had fun cooling off in the water before jumping back in the kayak to explore more of the mangrove islands.

There was one particular island that was bigger and was set up with picnic tables. We ate our lunch here and spent some time exploring the area.

The mangrove trees are really interesting. You don't expect to see plants living next to the saltwater like this but they've managed to figure it out.

Heading back out we went to a bunch of other little mangrove islands and took in the view of the ocean. At one point we stopped in a shallow reef area and checked out the numerous starfish.

From this view you can see a bunch of the little islands out in the distance. It was fantastic.

We wanted to stay until sunset but since we had to get the kayak back this was the most we got to see.

We had a bit of a drive back and we were tired from being out all day but it was well worth it.