Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: Caribbean

Meet-the-Parents Photos

Do you remember the scene in the movie Meet the Parents where Greg and Pam arrive at Pam’s ex-fiance, Kevin’s, house for a pre-wedding barbeque? Greg finds all the old photos of Pam and Kevin together, doing amazing things like skydiving and snorkeling (still on display in the ex-fiance’s house – hilarious). Somehow that scene stuck with Chris and me, and every time we take a photo together doing something even slightly adventurous, we call it a “Meet-the-Parents” photo. Now that I’m explaining it, it sounds totally weird, but to us it’s silly and good fun. We’ve been collecting quite a few of these, and we’re hoping to add more to the series soon! Here we are doing things like kayaking, zip-lining, dog-sledding, hiking and snowboarding:

This year we’re planning to add a big one: scuba-diving! Truth? I’m pretty scared of trying it even though I love doing things (within reason) that put me well out of my comfort zone. I’m not interested in say, holding a spider, mind you. That’s light years outside of my comfort zone. But challenging myself to do things that are a little scary seems to broaden my horizon a bit each time. I learn about myself, about other people, and about the world, and I truly enjoy that part of it. So I’m expecting to learn quite a bit from getting PADI certified if I can get through the open water dives, which we plan to do in Grand Cayman!

I’m not actually too scared of the breathing under water part. I think that will be fun, and I’m glad we get to try it in a pool first. It’s the ocean-wide world of creatures that makes me nervous. How do I know which ones are friendly and which ones aren’t? And when I’m approached by one in the unfriendly camp, then what? What if I panic? I’m also someone who gets really (really really) excited about things. Big things, little things, plain things, amazing things. Ask Chris – we are often driving along somewhere when he hears me draw a sudden GASP that makes him worry he’s about to hit another car when nope, it’s just that I saw an interesting cloud/tree/house/random stranger. So I’m worried I won’t know how to properly “chill” while diving. But I’m willing to see how it goes, and hopefully I’ll have a Meet-the-Parents photo to post for you here!

February 5, 2014
Puerto Rico 2013

Happy almost-end-of-summer! (It’s not officially fall until September 22nd, right?) Chris and I just returned from a sort of unplanned trip to Puerto Rico last week. I say “sort of unplanned” because I am an obsessive travel planner and I usually have trips booked or at least outlined a year or so in advance. We originally thought we’d drive to Toronto for the long Labor Day weekend, but we decided a few weeks ago that we could use a longer vacation. Being close and on a direct flight path from Dulles International Airport, Puerto Rico fit the bill. Plus, we found an amazing deal on flights + hotel through Travelocity. So off we went!

We knew that we might run into some bad weather since it’s prime hurricane season, but we figured that staying at a huge resort hotel in the city would provide us with enough to do on a rainy day if needed. It turns out that a few of our booked activities did get cancelled due to a tropical wave that turned into a tropical storm, but we did have good weather most of the time and we found plenty of things to do.

The second full day, we took our little green rental Fiesta and drove to El Yunque rainforest for some hiking. The waterfalls were amazing. We hiked the trail to Cascada La Mina, and even got in the water beneath the falls. It was cold! And a little scary – I couldn’t see what I was stepping on.

That evening we headed into Old San Juan and took a ferry across the water to the Casa Bacardi rum factory. The tour was brief and we only saw a replica of the distillery process, but there were free drinks at the end!

Because our sail/snorkel trip was cancelled, we were able to spend a little more time exploring Old San Juan. What a cute city! The buildings are so colorful with ornate details. I took several new images for my collection of door photos.

We toured the two castles in the city, Castillo de San Cristóbal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro, and enjoyed learning about the history of each. We may also have played House Hunters, saying things like, “This is a great space! It has good light, and plenty of room for a king size bed. Oh, here’s where we could put our office…”

The last full day of our trip, we drove to Seven Seas Beach and spent the afternoon snorkeling right off the shore. It was definitely my speed – I like when I can just pop out of the water if when something freaks me out. Thankfully all of the fish were the friendly kind, although I did see my first spiny black sea urchin! I forgot to photograph or video it, you know, on account of being scared of it. I’m getting a little more brave each time I go snorkeling though, I promise. I’m not committing to it, but I may even try scuba diving soon.

Puerto Rico 2013 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.

September 10, 2013
Virgin Gorda – The Baths

If you are planning a trip to the Virgin Islands (U.S. or British), The Baths on Virgin Gorda is an excursion not to be missed. It was one of the highlights of our Tortola trip! Huge granite boulders form caverns of sheltered pools along the edge of the beach, and you can hike, wade, and climb your way through the massive awe-inspiring maze. If you’re not staying on Virgin Gorda, it’s easily accessible by ferry, a tour group, or charter boat.

The first time Chris and I went to St. John, I chickened out of visiting The Baths with the rest of our group because I was afraid to snorkel and for some reason I thought the caves would be dark and full of creepy sea creatures. I’m shaking my head in shame now that I know better, and I’ve learned my lesson on carpe diem-ing these opportunities. The second time we planned to see The Baths via the Bad Kitty tour after I decided I was brave enough, a tropical storm cancelled our tour. Sigh! So third time’s a charm, right? On this trip to Tortola, Chris and I were fiiinally able to see the awesomeness that is The Baths. We decided it would be easy enough to just hop on the ferry out of Road Harbor and grab a cab once we arrived on Virgin Gorda, and it did turn out to be very simple.

Our ferry ride over to Virgin Gorda from Tortola was beautiful. The weather was a little cloudy that day, but happily I think it made a difference in the crowd level. We heard morning was a good time to avoid busy tour groups, so we arrived around 11am and didn’t find the caves or the beaches to be crowded at all. I had also checked the Port Authority schedule to see what day would have the least cruise ship passengers in port (we picked a day with no cruise ships in port), so that helped, too. Photography note: morning is also a great time to get the best lighting for photos.

From the ferry dock we took a taxi to the top of the Baths – you can either arrange for a taxi as part of your ferry trip, or just grab a taxi waiting at the ferry dock. It was about a 10-minute ride to Spring Bay where we were dropped off at The Top of the Baths – an area with restaurant/bars, shops, and the kiosk where you pay visitor entrance fee to the park ($3 per adult). From the top, it’s a 10-15 minute sandy hike down to the caves. The trail is well-marked, you can’t get lost, and as long as you don’t have mobility issues it’s not a particularly challenging hike. I wore water shoes, but Chris did the trip in flip-flops and he was fine.

And just to ease the concerns of anyone who imagines The Baths like I did, it’s not creepy. I promise. The caves are nice and bright, and the water is no more than waist-deep (I’m 5’7″) in most spots, free of any sea creatures. Also, the boulders are so huge and tall that I didn’t feel trapped in a small space or anything. There are a few tight areas, including one that you have to crawl through to enter the caverns (see photos of us in the crevices below for perspective), and there’s a bit of an incline climb towards the beginning that requires assistance of a rope “rail,” but other than that, this isn’t a super physically demanding activity. If there’s anywhere you can make it look like you’re starring in an Indiana Jones movie though, this is it!

I hate saying this since I’m a photographer, but photos just don’t do this natural phenomenon justice. You really have to be in the caverns to understand the scale of these massive boulders.

There are plenty of tour groups that offer guided tours of The Baths, but it’s something you can see on your own if you don’t want to go with a big group. We didn’t have guides, and well…full disclosure, we did get a little lost for a few minutes, but that’s only because we climbed up out of the caves and on top of the boulders and sort of wandered off the beaten path. Obviously we found our way out!

After exiting the caves, we spent some time snorkeling around the boulders off the beach and it was SO FUN. This was the moment I realized snorkeling isn’t terrifying, and it’s actually quite fun. We saw friendly colorful fish in shallow, easy to access water right off the beach. Some of the footage in this video is from The Baths (from 1:36 to 1:57), and might give you a better idea of how things looked from the inside. All the photos and this video were taken with my Canon S95 in a waterproof housing.

Tortola 2013 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.

May 20, 2013
Tortola 2013

Hi friends! Chris and I are back from spending an amazing week on Tortola, BVI. We’ve been planning this trip for a year, and were especially excited to go back to the Virgin Islands after last year’s trip to St. John was affected by Tropical Storm/Hurricane Issac. I was also really disappointed that our side-trip to the BVIs was cancelled due to the weather last time, so this year we figured we’d go straight to the British side of the islands to see what it’s like, NOT during hurricane season. We rented a beautiful villa above Brewers Bay called The Refuge, and spent the week visiting Tortola’s beaches, eating and drinking in fun little beach bars, and we even took a day trip over to Virgin Gorda to explore The Baths. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all week long – it couldn’t have been more perfect. Here are a few photos of the house, our view, beautiful sunsets each night from various beach bars, and our snorkeling adventures at The Baths and Smugglers Cove (and if you make it to the end of the post, there’s a video!):

So, I brought my SLR, a point-and-shoot, a GoPro Hero 2 AND my iPhone (overkill), but I actually ended up taking more video clips than still images if you can believe it! So (and please keep in mind that I’m a photographer and not really a videographer) here’s a short video I put together of our adventure:

Tortola 2013 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.

May 12, 2013
St. John 2012

So here are a few images from our trip to St. John, as promised! Chris and I actually had a great time despite the fact that Tropical Storm/Hurricane Issac showed up to the party. The first few days at the villa were am-a-zing. The weather was incredible – bright blue skies, puffy white clouds, tons of sun, and visibility for miles. We spent our days hanging out at the house, relaxing in the pool or on the huge deck in the super comfy chairs (so many options!), and we spent our evenings trying out bars and restaurants, and then unwinding in the hot tub. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were just absolutely travel-magazine perfect. We were looking forward to spending time at the beaches later in the week, and going on a tour excursion of the British Virgin Islands on Friday.

But then the storm showed up on Wednesday, bringing with it a mixture of emotions – disappointment, excitement and fear. Living on the east coast, we are fairly used to hurricanes and we experience them regularly, but we’ve never encountered one on a tiny (tiny!) island before. It’s an entirely different experience. After speaking with some locals, we learned that it’s common for St. John to lose power because they manually shut it off to avoid any electrical dangers. We also learned that after one storm, the power didn’t return for six months. Can you imagine?! So as the storm approached and gained intensity, Chris and I briefly thought about flying home to salvage the remaining days of our time off from work, but unfortunately getting off of an island with an impending storm isn’t easy. The ferry wasn’t running over to the main island – they shut it down, so there’s pretty much no way to get off St. John unless you want to swim during 70+ mph gusts of wind.

The property manager for the villa came over and put all of the patio furniture inside the house (see iPhone photos below). And our trip to the BVIs on Friday was definitely canceled. So, what did we do with the rest of our time? We stocked up on batteries and drinks, hung out in the pool and hot tub on the rainy days, and on the really bad stormy days we just stayed inside relaxing, watching TV and doing a 1000-piece puzzle. The last day of our visit was clear enough to make our flight. It still turned out to be a fun trip, even with the storm, so I’m calling it a success!

December 11, 2012