More reef exploration near Salinas: the Caribbean octopus and the reef squid. The octopus has always been hiding under a coral or rock shelf; you have to look closely to see her blinking eye or a tentacle. The squid are out in the open, in groups of four, five, or as many as nine. They seem to travel in groups, and in formation.

Debby will be flying back to Minnesota for a few weeks, to help move her mom into a nursing home. Larry is staying behind in Salinas to take care of the boat, as we are still in the high season for hurricanes. He may need to move the boat back over to the Bahia Jobos mangrove forest for protection if a hurricane threatens the area. It has been pretty quiet, after Hurricane Felix went well south of us a few weeks ago. Just to remind us we aren't through with storms yet, this morning we got rain showers from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ingrid, which is passing to the north in a disorganized fashion (which is the way we like to see our tropical storms, disorganized and disintegrating).

We have decided to stay in Salinas a little longer, since it is so close to the hurricane hole in Bahia de Jobos where we tucked in for Hurricane Dean. Another hurricane, Felix, has since passed through the Caribbean hitting a sparsely populated area of Central American. Some of the locals there, Miskito Indians from small fishing villages, had to flee in canoes (!)

On Labor Day weekend, we attended a local minor-league baseball game in town. The sport is very popular in Puerto Rico which has supplied many players to the major leagues including Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda(SF Giants), and Bernie Williams from San Juan, currently with the Yankees.

The enthusiasm that a Puerto Rican crowd brings to an event like a baseball game can hardly be described. There were homemade noise makers, cowbells, drums, whistling, and singing enough for a crowd ten times the maybe 300 people in this small town stadium. We really had a good time, even though the home team lost.