I had the day to myself. Decided to explore the island. Got myself a rental car and drove to the furthest end of the island. This is the Southwest end of the island – about two and a half hours drive away.

El Combate beach was to die for. The water stayed true to the Caribbean colors and it had a lot of green trees giving shade right up on the sand – which was as white as it could be.

At any seaside restaurant, when we sit down for breakfast, we are often visited by birds of the sparrow family, sometimes crows and sometimes even beach birds.

This is the first time a rather stern looking rooster and a hen walked up.

I canceled my egg omelette order to avoid infuriating them 🙂

This was our breakfast spot eight years back. The outside tables are gone but the Waffle shop is still there. And just like in 2014, there is a security guy sitting there. Not sure what he is guarding though.

The upper picture is a view from our room when we came to this same hotel eight years back. You can see the structure jutting out into the water with pavement on top. We would go to the edge and watch the high waves.

Then Hurricane Irma came in 2017. Caused over a billion dollars of damage to the island.

The bottom picture is what remains of that structure as I can see from my room today.

Headed to Puerto Rico after 8 years. (Or as the locals say, 16 tropical storms later!!). Wonder how much has changed. One thing I will be sure to check is if the cops there still have blue and green lights. Never seen that in any other place!!