LAKE POWELL MARINAS

There are five marinas on Lake Powell, all operated by Aramark Corporation, and all are open daily to public. All marinas are land-based, except Dangling Rope Marina, which is accessible only by boat.

Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas PO Box 56909 Phoenix, AZ 85079-6909

You can rent a houseboat at any of four land-based marinas. For reservations for houseboats or accommodations, boat rentals, charters, or day lake cruises, call toll free 800/528-6154. In greater Phoenix 278-8888 or fax 602/331-5258.

Reservations office is open 7 days a week, 7:30 am to 4:40 pm Mountain Standard Time, March through October. Open Monday through Friday other months. Closed Thanksgiving weekend, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Wahweap Lodge and Marina Box 1597 Page, AZ 86040 602/645-2433 Fax: 602/645-5175

Bullfrog Resort and Marina Lake Powell, UT 84533 Fax: 801/684-2312

Halls Crossing Marina Lake Powell, UT 84533 801/684-2261 Fax: 801/684-2319

Hite Marina Lake Powell, UT 84533 801/684-2278 Fax: 801/684-2358

Dangling Rope Marina is 41 miles from Glen Canyon Dam and has no phone, and runs on solar power. It has it's own gas dock.

You boat into Padre Bay around Padre Point, from Utah, and then you are in Arizona, under Tower Butte, part of Navajo Indian Reservation. Tower Butte has identical symmetry on all four sides. From Wild Horse Mesa it rises 800 feet, its flat top three feet less than a mile above sea level.

Labyrinth Canyon winds its way from Padre Bay like a boney finger, pinching sandstone puffball canyon walls narrower and steeper. At end of canyon I hiked on miles of sandy trails through rivertine shrubs, dead animals, shade, sun, shade, sun, and like an English maze garden. other canyons that shoot off or into one we are on. But which one? I would not want to be here during a flash flood. In fact, there is no trace of earlier storms last two days, sand sucked every molecule into it's earthern lair. The sand is dry; we take our shoes off; oxide pushes between our toes like old, but still warm, campfire coals. The horizon is only up and it is an infinite turquoise and cloudless. Blakely and I hear sheep bleating, so we know we are on Navajo Indian Reservation.

Back at houseboat passing storms stirs fishing into a frenzy, and poles are hung over top and bottom decks, with every other cast snarled in someone else's line. That night we caught plenty of stripers and in morning it was channel cats on anchovies, but million dollar fish received a good conduct medal for not landing on our lines. Everyone was cursing their bad luck and that had to be most reviled fish in lake. At least we saved film. By noon everyone was getting a little sunburned so it was time for more beer and Cheetos, and by looks of some of crew, they could have cut back on both.

MILLION DOLLAR FISHING TOURNAMENT

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Kriss Hammond, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent – Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com

The soldiers of Colonial Spain garrisoned in Old City erected three-story convent, designed by an army engineer. The walls (sun-baked clay brick) were three feet thick to withstand Indians, European enemies, hurricanes and tropical heat. Doors and grilles over slottred windows were mahogany and ausubo (ironwood), a dark wood from West Indies that increases in strength with age.

The building's characteristic Spanish features were an enormous, open interior courtyard framed by tiered balconies and arched corridors. Nuns' cells were tiny rooms with single beds and straw mattresses. The spacious chapel had a domed ceiling.

In July 1651, Monastery our Lady Carmen of San Jose was inaugurated, better known as Carmelite Convent. Doña Ana was first to enter cloister and became mother superior. With her were her sister Antonia and four protégés.

The Convent on Cristo Street, was and still is adjacent to Plaza of Nuns, city's second oldest park. Across street is San Juan Cathedral built in 1521. The one-story structure with a thatched roof was destroyed by a hurricane and rebuilt starting in1540. The Western Hemisphere's oldest cathedral, it is one of few examples of medieval architecture remaining in New World.

The first Carmelite Convent in Americas housed nuns for over two and a half centuries, (252 years). On December 9, 1903, Archbishop of San Juan decided further repairs were too costly and nine remaining nuns and two novices moved a few days before Christmas.

Vacant for a decade or more, church purchased abandoned building from Carmelite nuns in 1913 for $151. They rented it first as a retail store then a dance hall. Then, for next forty years, it served as a flophouse without running water, sanitary facilities or elecltricity, just as in 1600's. In 1953, ruin was a parking lot for garbage trucks.

It was slated in 1957 for bulldozing to build a badly needed downtown parking garage just as an urban renewal program began taking roots in Old San Juan.

In 1959, with Operation Bootstrap, Ricardo Alegria from Institute of Puerto Rican Culture persuaded Woolworth store heir, Robert Frederick Woolworth, a resident of State of Maine, to purchase convent property from Archdiocese of San Juan for $250,000 and transform it into a deluxe hotel named El Convento. It sparked development of business, tourism and employment in Old San Juan.

Three years of hard work converted decayed structure into hotel. Two floors were added to original convent's three stories, creating 100 rooms, including ten suites at that time.

The interior designer, accompanied by a photographer and Mr.Woolworth, journeyed throughout Spain to find furniture for hotel. When he couldn't get authentic pieces from Spain's Golden Age, he commissioned reproductions of enormous chandeliers, wrought-iron fixtures and decorative tiles. All wood objects, furniture, louvered doors and overhead beams were handcrafted of walnut or mahogany. Lampshades were goatskins. while bedspreads and rugs were woven in Granada by gypsies.

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Edwin Ali, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent – Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com