Day 2 on this 5 acre island ...that brings back memories of the Gulligan's Island TV show. We know most every one on the island now...both tourist and locals. The morning sky was cloudy and hung them just before it started to rain. In intervals we read, visited with neighbors & staff, napped in hammocks, played cards, walked around the island & made careful & prolonged viewing of the osprey, pelicans, crows, herons, rays & fish swimming around the docks. Even a coconut dropping was interesting. After a couple showers, we re-wrung out clothes & hung them on our porch. The day went by about as fast as the clothes dried. Island time is easy to get use to. Here meals are served family style and on days like today...we linger around the table with rich conversation. Fellow travelers can tell such fascinating stories! Day 3 brought sunshine so we were on open water and what is called The Garden. The vibrant colors of the fish & reef was worthy of it's name. A group of Vermont students snorkeled at night with headlamps and showed us their video of a green moray eel & a large octopus they'd spotted. It was tempting but not convincing enough to make me go. Princess, a 3 year old hung around me for a while so we wrote the ABC's in the sand & read a couple books I had. She rewarded me dancing the Punta (she could shake every part of her little body!). Day 4 Spent the first couple hours saying goodbye to Muriel & Judd and then getting to know our new neighbors...Jeff & Erica better. We had talked to them a bit yesterday and today they said they thought it was such a good idea to do some volunteering while traveling that next year...they were going to do it. We exchanged our emails & they want us to let them know more about Safe Haven...the orphanage we worked at in Thailand. We canoed along the nearby reef and spotted sting rays, trunk fish, star fish, coral & many tiny fish through the sparkling clear water. We watched guy cleaning conch & later his wife brought us some freshly made conch fritters. Our dinner last 2 hours as a couple from Belgium, a girl from Switzerland & her boyfriend from Hawaii and a couple from Canada shared many of our views of this world discussing all we have learned while traveling. ..not only from the countries we travel but also the many people we meet from all over the world. Truly these conversations are one of the best parts of traveling!
