The Action Adventure Blog

Puerto Rico - "2.5 hrs until sunset/2.5 hours to figure out where to stay"

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-08-03T20:59:06-07:00

The Island of Vieques is located about 15-20 miles off the East coast of Puerto Rico. After spending a night in El Yunque Danyelle and I targeted Vieques as our next destination for two reasons 1) it has what many believe is one of the world's best Bio-Bays 2) it seemed relatively non-touristy.

So with our packs ready to go and our rental car parked in an extremely shady, barbed wire inclosed parking lot - BUT completely safe because my buddy Junior seemed like a cool dude - we set off on the Puerto Rican ferry system.

In my previous post I closed with a conversation I had with a woman who grew up on Vieques, and her warnings that Danyelle and I should consider renting a room rather than camping, due to the high crime rate.

The ferry left at 4:30pm traveling just under 10mph. We were going to arrive on the island with about 30 minutes of daylight. I figured we would have just enough time to reach the camp-grounds, and if we didn't feel comfortable spending the night, we would have to haul ass by foot down the beach to Esperanza(a 15 min trip by foot). Still, in Esperanza there was no guarantee we would find a room, as there aren't really any hotels. For example, one of the places we were advised to stay was with a couple of Americans who ran a restaurant called Bananas, and had a few rooms in the back that they rented out.

While on the ferry I figured I should start up a few conversations to see if I could gather any more information. There were two individuals I was able to have a lengthy conversation with. Both lived on Vieques, but neither was a native. They didn't know each other before meeting in Vieques but BOTH spent most of their lives in Manhattan. One was an old white haired, red faced man in his 70's who grew up in Manhattan. The other was a woman in her 60's, born in Germany, but spent 24 years in Manhattan married to a newspaper writer. Both were merchants, selling their craft on the streets of Esperanza.

A picture from the ferry

At first, neither of them seemed like they wanted to play tour guide to a couple of tourists, but were still willing to engage in some conversation. We talked about everything from the meaning of life and what makes us happy, to what wall-paper and ring-tone was best for the German woman's stone age cell phone. About half way through our 2 hour boat ride I asked them what they thought about camping on Vieques. I figured their opinion would be better than the woman I had met on the dock for a couple of reasons:

The woman on the dock may have grown up on Vieques, but she now lives her life in a Florida suburb with 2 kids teaching spanish and coaching swimming at a local high-school. She seemed to be a very sweet conservative woman living the American dream.
The two merchants had spent the last 9 years on Vieques. Their trade puts them right on the street, and in turn, right in the middle of all the action. To me, they would have the best knowledge of what occurs on Vieques.

ALAS - I finally got the answer I was looking for! I asked the German woman if she thought camping on Vieques was safe and her response was positively, YES! The old man agreed, but he agreed with just about everything the German woman said. Still, we new nothing was for sure until we got there and scoped it out.

After the ferry docked we jumped in a cab and headed to the other side of the island where our camp-grounds were located. At this point, I still wanted to get as much info about the island as possible so I started asking the cab driver as many questions as possible. It was getting dark and I thought it still might be a good idea to head straight to Esperanza instead of arriving at a shady place and then having to walk 15 minutes along the coast in the dark. But, to our excitement the cab driver also had only positive things to say about camping on Vieques. Hell yes!

As we walked up to the camp-ground the sun had just disappeared out of site, giving us just enough light to survey the camp grounds. I went up to the first person I saw and started asking questions. This individual was a nice old Puerto Rican woman in her 70's who spoke broken english. She wasn't camping but had stopped by to spend her day at the beach/camp-ground where her grandson was camping. He was on a high-school multi-day field trip to camp, and visit the Bio-Bay on Vieques.

At this point Danyelle and I took a huge sigh of relief realizing the camp-grounds were probably as safe as it gets. As I looked across the camp-grounds, I saw about 13 tents all occupied by Puerto Rican families.

We set up camp:)

Ok, enough rambling - the next post will cover how awesome Vieques was.

El Yunque Rainforest - Puerto Rico

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-07-23T09:52:58-07:00

What better way to start out a Puerto Rican adventure than camping in El Yunque's rainforest.

Trip Itinerary:

Goal of the trip - hit up the El Yunque National Rain Forest, roam the Island of Vieques and its Bioluminescent Bay, and explore the Toro Negro Reserve.

Danyelle and I were unable to make camping reservations at any location so we headed to Puerto Rico with just our gear(which of course included a healthy amount of beef jerky) and planned to wing it.

Here's a snapshot of what we brought.

El Yunque National Rainforest

The Forest gets its name from an Indian spirit Yuquiye, which means "Forest of Clouds", and covers 28,000 acres of tropical forest. You'll see in many of our pictures the clouds that surrounded us near and at the peak. The winds at the peak were also awesomely intense, as you'll see in a video below.

We arrived in Puerto Rico around noon and set out to secure some camping permits. Once we arrived at the Forest's head quarters it actually went pretty smoothly...we were given permits at no charge and lectured by a 70 year old Puerto Rican man about what I assume were the Forest's rules.

Permits in hand, we headed out to set up camp before exploring the rainforest and hiking to the peak, the following day.

As the sun went down we had just enough time to get our tent set up and cook some yummy bean burritos. I'd bought some homemade hot sauce from a little tourist shop on the way to El Yunque - although I didn't think it was possible to add anything to my burritos to make them taste any better than they already did, the homemade hot sauce definitely added a little kick and helped Puertoricofy our dinner.

One of the things I love about camping is the peacefulness of sleeping outside, but as soon as it got dark it was anything but quiet. I'm not sure what all I could attribute the sounds to but there were far to many to count. The only time the sounds of the Forest quieted was when the rain rolled through...as it did at least a dozen separate times throughout the night. Also, the intense humidity and moisture provided a unique experience as it caused little rain showers inside our tent as moisture developed above us on the inside of the tent and dripped down.

At the break of dawn, we ate some oatmeal, packed up camp and set the camera up on a rock to take a picture.

To the peak!

On our way to the peak we stopped at a waterfall to enjoy the views as well as take a dip. Although the tempetures in Puerto Rico consistently reached the 90's in the previous months, the water had a chill that would have normally kept me out of pool, had it not been in such a beautiful place. I will say though, after ten minutes or so, it got pretty comfortable as the cool chill of the water, mixed with the hot humid air above, was a great combo.

After a solid hike we finally reached our first stopping point, and entered the cloud level where we stopped at an old lookout tower a few hundred feet below the peak.

Although the peak had some good views there was a little gem just a few hundred feet from El Yunque's peak and maybe 50 feet or so lower in elevation. So we headed that way for lunch.

After a little climb/hike,

we were able to settle down for lunch, coffee and some killer views.

the views...

Some pictures from the hike...

The Forest was thick...

Intro for the next post....the Island of Vieques and its Bio Bay:

After hiking El Yunque we made a sprint down the mountain so we could catch the ferry over to Vieques. We weren't sure what time the last ferry would be leaving so we had to hurry. The only info we had came from a map that had a little ferry boat on it with a dotted line going towards Vieques.

Once we arrived at the ferry and discovered that we had arrived with just enough time to catch the last boat of the day, I decided I would try to find out a little more about where we were going. After meeting an island native who now lives in Florida, but was returning to visit her mother, I told her that my girlfriend and I were camping on the island and asked her what she thought about it. Her response shocked me. She said the island had an extremely high crime rate and that crime is one of the main reasons she doesn't live there now. Genuinely worried for our safety, she began asking other locals about alternative places we could stay. After a couple conversations she told me about a small town called Esperanza where most English speaking people stay but said we might have trouble finding a place. It just so happens that the biggest festival of the year was taking place in the main town where the ferry would drop us off and that it was very likely every room on the island would be booked. Even the small little town of Esperanza.

So here we were, headed to Vieques after being told camping would be extremely dangerous but it may be our only option considering the festival would attract enough tourists to book every room on the island.

On the ferry headed to Vieques...

Slacklining yup yup

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-06-29T17:56:12-07:00

Not too long ago Ross and Donny introduced me to the greatness of the slackline. It only took a couple of attempts before I mastered the art of letting the slackline destroy my man jewels. Very similar to what happened to this guy. Needless to say, its a fun little way to pass the time and I finally got my own last week for my birthday.

Donny sent me this video a few weeks ago. This guy is crazy good.

The slackliners in this video aren't incredible but you can easily see, if you want to push the limits it doesn't take mad skills.

A few months ago Donny and I decided we would be the first to slackline Hells Gate over at Possum Kingdom. I'm thinking we will shoot for summer 2011.

AAQuick Links - Skydiving/Kayaking/Snowboarding

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-06-20T20:27:47-07:00

Kevin makes 150 jumps in one day for charity. My goal for the whole summer is 150!

blog.firstascent.com

Watch three ground breaking international kayaking expeditions unfold in search of a First Descent and follow an elite group of boaters as they embark on a dramatic journey deep in Mexico’s remote Sierra Occidental Mountains. The team attempts–for the first time–the Rio Piaxtla, which runs through the deepest canyon in North America. In India, the team goes on an epic 50 day expedition in search of uncharted whitewater in the steepest portion of the Himalayas, and the grand finale is a search of the largest kayak-able waterfalls on Earth in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

The First 14er

Until a few weeks ago, only 6 skiers had ever managed to ascend and descend all 54 of Colorado’s massive “14ers” — mountain peaks over 14,000 feet. Thanks to the dedication of Jarrett Luttrell, snowboarding has been added to the list. With his descent of Keplinger’s on Longs Peak, Jarrett became the first snowboarder to ride all 54 14ers, setting a new standard in ride-mountaineering and helping to open the door to the next wave of splitboarding.

Here's a map of all 54.

Let's Go Longboarding

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-06-14T19:41:23-07:00

Considering the ratio of times I've been out longboarding, whether it has been in a garage downtown or a neighborhood in the burbs, and the number of injuries that have occurred,(specifically Donny's broken wrist on new years day a few years ago) I'm thoroughly impressed by the skills in the videos below.

Adam Kimmel

Yikes!....This video doesn't get going until about the 2:30 mark, but watch out.

The aftermath of what must have been an epic wipe-out...

Beautiful scenery, a bit of speed, combined with some technical riding makes for a pretty good video I'd say.

Some fancy foot work by Loaded Boards

Antoine Montant(The Infinity Drop), AdBands Video

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-06-07T15:47:42-07:00

The Infinity Drop

Antoine Montant performs the first ever ejection from an infinity tumbling rotation into freefall where he then deploys a parachute over lake Annecy.

Antoine also combines high speed paragliding with skiing as the three time reigning champ of Speedflying.

AdBands

No, this is not an action adventure sports clip but its pretty darn creative, and I won't be cheesy and say it is an adventure in creativity but you are guaranteed a laugh and possibly a good hard chuckle.

Mark it under Art & Culture. Pow.

Slo-Mo Surfing/Bike City Ride/World Base Race

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-05-26T04:11:00-07:00

Super Slo-Mo Surfing

This video, the first-ever of its kind, was shot in slow-mo and HD. The surfer in this video is Dylan Longbottom, who looks to be back in full form after a pretty intense surfing accident on The Superbank in which he obtained a broken jaw and fractured check bone.

The Bike City Ride

The video starts out kinda slow but about a minute in, it gets ridiculous. To date, it has over 17 million views on YouTube.

Danny spent 6 months filming the video with a friend and after it hit the internet, he said goodbye to his full-time gig as a bike technician.

WORLD BASE RACE

The 2010 Base Race will be held at the Romsdalen Norwegian Mountain Festival July 12-17. I'm not sure how long this competition has been around but if I had to guess I'd say 2007....??? But, my oh my, this event is definitely most excellent. Of the 32 jumpers, 17 call the United States home.

I'll keep you posted as to how this year's competition goes.

Freestyle Skydiving - what it be...

Jeff Kauffman Jr. — 2010-05-23T09:11:59-07:00

As you may already know, Danyelle and I will be competing this September at USPA's Nationals competition in the Freestyle category. So here are the nuts and bolts of what that means:

We have 45 seconds of working time after leaving the plane.

The competition consists of two types of routines, Free and Compulsory. The Compulsory routines are outlined in USPA's competition manual starting on page 94. We haven't decided what we are going to put together for the Free routine but stayed tuned, I'll keep you posted.

There are seven rounds:

Free

Compulsory

Synchronized Back Turn Sequence

Robin Spin Sequence

Back tracking
Robin spin

Cartwheel Sequence: two cartwheels
Straddle Backstop (Cradle) Sequence
- Layout back-loop
- Straddle backstop
- Straddle kip
- 180 degree head up twist
- Second straddle backstop and straddle kip
- Layout front-loop

Free
Free
Compulsory (starts at the bottom of page 95)
- Straddle Headstand Sequence: straddle 360 degree pirouette
- - Straddle headstand
  - Straddle headstand pirouette
- Orbiting Compass
- - Compass position
  - Compass turn
- Layout Loop Twist Sequence
- - Layout front-loop
  - Layout front half twist
  - Layout back full twist
- Carving Sequence (performer and videographer must orbit 360 degree around an imaginary center between them while flying head down).
Free
Free

And there you have it. But, if you'd rather just watch a video to get an idea of what we're doing then here is one to get you started. Hopefully one day we can pull off something like this.

Freestyle training at SkyVenture Colorado