Day 5   7/24/09

Breakfast with Dottie at Trade Winds. Dottie is actually my waitress and a long time friend who works at Trade Winds serving breakfast and lunch. She has also made it her life’s vision to make sure all the stray and abandoned animals on the island are fed. This is her ministry, and waiting tables helps pay for it. She is also a volunteer for the Vieques Humane Society.

It also doesn’t hurt that the food is always good at Trade Winds. This morning is no exception with Margaret in the kitchen.

After some catching up with Dottie and my belly full, I was off to the gas station to get some petrel. They sell it by the liter and it is a good idea to always keep the tank full in your car, as you never know when they’re going to run out and they always run out a few days before the next gas trucks come over on the ferry. It’s the one thing that always seems like a permanent crisis situation on the island, and there are always long lines when they finally get gas. IMPORTANT! Keep it full or fill up often!

Stopped at Playa Grande Beach to take some pictures before heading home to get ready for dinner with my old friend Duffy. This beach is always deserted. It’s a great walking beach and there is a big mangrove lagoon there with lots of birds. You can walk east all the way to Black Sand Beach, if you don’t mind getting a little wet and west all the way to the western tip of the island at the base of Mt. Pirata, the highest peak in Vieques. There aren’t a lot of palm trees, but there is some great scenery.

After getting refreshed, I was on my way to Chez Shack to pick up my date. Duffy! Hugh, almost single handedly, built tourism in Vieques. If that seems like a exaggeration, just in Vieques, he built Duffy’s Island House, now Trade Winds, then Bananas, while also building La Campesina, then a Sports Bar behind 18 Degrees North, Chez Shack in Pilon, and then Duffy’s Esperanza with his son. At 80 something, he continues to build and expand Chez Shack, which now seats in excess of 150. He also built the original Duffy’s in St. Thomas, where the Mama’s and Papa’s waited tables and played for him in the 60’s, and Duffy’s Island House in Isla Verde. I know I’m missing a few, but this is a good starter for making him a legend in his own mind.

We visited Chef Michael at Coconuts for dinner, where I had a very good Steak Frite, medium rare just like I ordered, and a great Calamari appetizer. Coconuts is an open-air patio in downtown Isabel Segunda with soft lighting and great breezes. If only we could get the cruising sound trucks turned off and Duffy had been a younger woman, it would have been a perfect evening. It was in fact a fun night with the old man. We stopped on the way home at Trade Winds for a nightcap and then I chauffeured him back to Pilón and went home myself.

NEXT  DAY 6