Arecibo

It seemed silly to visit Puerto Rico and not visit the radio telescope at Arecibo so we drove over for a look about. Turns out that the telescope is sited in a region of karst south of the town of Arecibo. As you might imagine, there are no primary roads from the expressway south, so we wound about for a long time on very narrow roads never sure that we actually getting anywhere until we finally popped out right at the entrance.



As you might suppose, the telescope was damaged by hurricane Maria and some of the damage is still under repair. As you see above and below,there is a detector hut suspended above the main dish. Just to the left of this is a small arm pointing down. This is what is left of a 100 foot long 430 Mhz antenna. We were told that the new one won't be ready until 2022. In the meantime, this frequency is covered, at lower sensitivity, by other detectors.

The best story on the tour was that when Goldeneye was filmed here, Pierce Brosnan, James Bond, was headed out the long walkway you see above the main dish to shoot the action scene when he learned that he is afraid of heights. He froze and had to be fetched down. I'm with him on this. I'd never survive the trip out there. His stunt double did the scene.

It was quite warm and sunny in spite of the clouds overhead. In the distance, there was also rain. Fortunately, we never saw any where we were.

After another amazingly confusing drive back to the north coast, we drove out near the town of Arecibo to visit the lighthouse and historical park. Unfortunately, what we found was a pretty small lighthouse (no good pictures to be had) with an amusement park next to it. Rather than try that, we went across the street to the beach and enjoyed the sun and sand.