Puerto Rico, day 5 - Arecibo telescope, Project 727, and biobay kayaking

We decided to make it out to the other side of the island today. There is a third-largest underground cave system in the world not far from the town of Arecibo on the west side of the island. Unfortunately, there is a limited number of visitors allowed per day and by the time we got out there (including unplanned wait time for unlocking the car after we left the keys on the dashboard in San Juan) we were unable to get in.

We did not feel too bad since we already had a ziplining adventure scheduled for the next day in this area so we knew we would get to check out some of the caves (and it turned out a much better experience anyway).  We turned around and drove to the world’s largest radio telescope located in the mountains nearby. We got in just before they closed and it was definitely an amazing sight - such a large scale structure - just mind boggling.

Peggy is hungryBeen thereThe telescopeGroup picture

Once we got out of the observatory, I called a friend of mine that lives in Arecibo and put together a Boeing 727 simulator in his garage. I met Joe last year at the Boeing 737 weekend class in Houston. He built his 727 simulator by purchasing an actual TWA 727 fuselage and cutting it off just past the first class section. Everything inside is authentic TWA items from seats to food trays and flight manuals. Simulated and real cockpit instruments interface to the Microsoft Flight Simulator with a screen ahead of the cockpit providing a nice outside picture for a very realistic simulation experience.

Bruce outside the simFound the Trixie buttonBruce mixing up some brew in the galleyTrying to get FA's attention?

Unfortunately, we did not have much time since we had to drive out all the way to the east side of the island to go kayaking in a bioluminescent bay, so Joe quickly walked me through a takeoff routine and we called it a day.

We hit some traffic on the way back and were about 30 minutes late for our bio bay reservations, but since we had such a large group, we still had two guides waiting to take us, yey! We jumped in the kayaks and paddled in total darkness up the narrow channel surrounded by mangrove trees. After twenty minutes or so, we reached Laguna Grande, one of the five bioluminescent bays in the world. The organisms in the water literally make it glow when you touch it or paddle through it and it looks even more amazing when the little fish zig zag around making it appear like shooting stars. It trully is an amazing experience.

To some - a lifewest, to others - sports braPeggy and Jon trying to keep upBen and Diva kayaking in bio bayGroup picture with our guides

The rest of my Puerto Rico posts:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 pmand is filed under Flying, Puerto Rico. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Puerto Rico, day 5 - Arecibo telescope, Project 727, and biobay kayaking”

  • Sheena Says:
    June 24th, 2010 at 9:09 am

    Dima, thats so cool about the bio bay (well and of course the guy who built his own simulator!!), I first saw one in Tampa, and couldn’t believe it! It was so cool when the fish would jump out of the water, it was almost like fireworks!

Leave a Reply