Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Our full first day! It started quite unusually by Dave and I waking up around 6:00 am. We went back to bed for an hour and arose to the sunshine and the sounds of the waves on the shore at 7:00. It was so pleasant! We got up and began our day. We first got a shower…. In our outdoor shower that is big enough for two. It was warm outside and it seemed as if we were showering in the rain. We got dressed and I had to wear a shirt of David’s because I still did not have my clothes luggage. But by the time we were done dressing, the receptionist called and told us the good news that they had found my luggage and it was on its way, I should have it later on that morning! Hurray! We finished dressing and preparing for our first day and I saw a small crab outside our window… The adventure begins. We walked outside and the tide was high, but we were still able to walk along the shore. It reminded me of an ancient coral reef. There were fossilized coral all along the walkway. We were not able to catch a picture of the crab but we did see that the pool was one of our neighbors. We checked it our and I found that the water was quite cold. We headed to the castle for breakfast. We were greeted by friendly faces and lots of birds in the air. It seemed it was their feeding time too. We sat down and ordered our breakfast: eggs over hard with bacon for me and a special extra good omelet for Dave. There was also an assortment of fresh juices. I had pineapple and Dave had guava juice. I tried a version of oatmeal…it was cool with fresh apples and coconut in it. We had fresh fruit to go with it all. While we ate a couple of black headed seagulls did a song and dance for us. They sounded like Aunt Judy doing an impression of a peacock. There was another type of bird that was brown on top with a white speckled brown underbelly. For being a dull looking bird it has the nicest song we have heard so far. Also, while eating Dave saw a black humming bird. Sadly, we were too slow to take a picture of it. Maybe next time… Our table was right on the edge of the lookout of the dining room and we were able see the dock. We saw a variety of birds. Pelicans were diving into the ocean and grabbing their breakfast. We saw thin yet large black birds flying high as if they were turkey vultures. After breakfast we went and signed up for our excursions for the rest of the week. We went back to the room to and then went out to explore the island on our own before the tour. We saw a variety of flowers and took lots of pictures. Suddenly….there it was… right in front of the Iguana Crossing sign … and large iguana! It was sooo cool! We took many pictures of it and continued towards the dock. The water around the dock is the perfect area for baby fish to grow up. 
We saw baby barracuda, a bumble bee fish, striped fish, yellow fish, red fish, and schools of fish. Lots of really neat fish! Dave changed lenses on the camera and we went to get a close up of the iguana we saw…Suddenly on the way we saw a blue striped lizard! It got away too quick before Dave could take a picture. No worries though mate…we soon found out there are lots of blue lizards. There were two iguanas instead of one by the iguana crossing. They didn’t seem to get along much because they kind of snapped at each other. We continued down the path toward the gift shop and I saw a snake…it was about 2 feet in length and gray. We saw a red lizard and a cute crab coming out of a hole in the ground. Dave got pictures of it before it went in its hole. There were many lizards in this part of the trail. We saw a beautiful yellow bird who sang upside down. Its song wasn’t too impressive. By the housekeeping house, we saw a large hermit crab. It was scared to come out of its shell, but when it knew we weren’t around it began to walk around. We turned around because we didn’t know how far the gift shop was. We would wait for the official tour to show it to us. We waited for the tour by the dock, but David found out that it started in a different area. Maria gave us the grand tour and showed us the marina, gift shop, tennis courts, beach, the many nature trails, plant nursery, helicopter pad, and took us back to our villa. We arrived with my luggage waiting in our sitting room! I proceeded to unpack and change into shorts and a t-shirt. We road our bikes to the marina. We got our snorkeling flippers and as Dave went to take a picture of large sail boat…I looked out over the dock and saw a HUGE fish. I thought it was a shark at first because of its massive size. But we found out that it was a tarpin. There were 4-5 of them out there. They were 4 feet long and silver in color. I have never seen a wild fish that big before. It was awesome. We road our bikes back to our villa and got our snorkel stuff together for our next adventure. Off to the beach we went. We picked a nice set of lounge chairs under a cabana, right in front of the giant chess set. We put on our snorkel gear and headed into the warm water. It was the perfect temperature. We swam out and soon the sand gave way to waving sea grass. Dave saw a small fish but didn’t know how to let me know. After surfacing we figured out the best way was to just yell “HEY!” under the water and get the other person to look at you and then point towards what we saw. We decided to swim out to a floating platform that was suspended farther off shore. Soon the land under us dropped off deeper. Suddenly I felt a frantic tapping on my leg and saw Dave pointing straight down. I saw a large dark shape…then I realized what it was. A huge stingray, at least 4 ft across! And there…another one. Two of them swimming below us. Its hard to judge distance underwater but probably 20 ft or so. I hurried to the platform, not sure I liked the stingrays. We rested a few minutes on the platform, and rinsed our goggles out. Dave wanted to swim over toward the mangroves along the edge of the bay but I was hesitant to get back in the water. Finally Dave got back in the water, so I followed. He took my hand as we swam back and I felt safe. We saw a stingray again on the way back, maybe a different one, maybe one of the two we had seen. Once the drop off turned back into shallow water again I spotted a large starfish. It was orange and probably a little larger than a foot across! We explored some more. We saw lots of sea urchins, many covered in mangrove leaves that had got stuck to their spines. We occasionally saw small fish darting among the sea grass. There wasn’t much over by the edge of the mangroves, not that we could see at least. We did see a huge school of tiny fish that we tried to catch, but off course they just darted here and there, just out of reach. We headed back to shore. It was lunch time! An outdoor barbeque was being set up. The brown speckled birds we had seen earlier were trying to help themselves to the salad and fresh fruit table. Some people went ahead and started because the didn’t want the birds eating their food and they got in trouble for starting early. AWWWW, tsk tsk. When the meat was ready Dave and I both got grilled chicken with barbeque sauce and grilled mahi mahi. The mahi mahi was delicious. We sampled a variety of things from the buffet table including an orange yam or sweet potato like vegetable, asparagus, egg plant, peppers and pea pods, cuscus, pineapple, watermelon, guava, and Dave stole a plum from the fruit display centerpiece. We also had a couple of cookies. After eating we wanted to rest a bit before snorkeling again. We tried the hammock but I had forgot my skirt bottom and the ropes hurt my legs. We decided to play chess. I tried my best but Dave won, as always. At one point Dave went to the rest room and while he was gone a lady passing by offered to help me switch all the pieces around! I laughed but decided to play fair. After the chess match we decided to go snorkeling again. We went out and saw some fish, including a blue and yellow one. Then dave saw a conch shell! He went to pick it up but when he turned it over there was a huge hermit crab inside! He dropped it quickly. We swam on over towards the mangroves on the opposite side of the bay from the first trip. Dave saw some bigger colorful fish but while trying to communicate to me a lot of sand got kicked up and blocked our vision. We decided to swim on. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shape. I turned to my right and saw a barracuda starring right back at me. I grabbed Dave and he saw it too. It must have been two feet long! It swam slowly along starring right at us the whole time. Finally dave stood up and it darted off. We were both relieved. We swam back away from the mangroves. Then I saw another large starfish. It was a lot like the one we’d seen earlier. Dave saw a teeny tiny little blue fish. It was soo cute. I decided to get out of the water because my goggles were acting up. While I was taking off my fins Dave popped his head up and said he had seen a little white crab trying to bury itself in the sand so he couldn’t see it. We decided to head back so as not to miss tea time. We showered and change and went up to the pavilion where we found almond cupcakes, banana bread with chocolate chips, some kind of chocolate cookie. I had earl gray hot tea to drink with mine. We sipped our drinks and snacked as we decided what to do next. We went back down to the dock and saw the regular fishes. We also saw what looked like a brown heron, with orange legs. It had a long neck and looked funny when it stretched it out like a slinky. We took a look at the snooker table and game room and then headed back to the room. We transferred the 246 pictures taken so far today and then changed into our dinner clothes. We both looked smokin’ hot. For our appetizer we both had tiger shrimp with a spicy chili drizzle, and grilled pineapple. For dinner Dave had a steak of grilled yellow fin tuna in a cream sauce. I had beef with a special wine sauce and mashed potatoes. In between we had strawberry sorbet. Yum! For dessert I had blueberry ice cream with a rich butter cookie. Dave had rum baba: a sponge cake soaked in local rum with spiced apples on the side. Dinner was delicious! The atmosphere was created by a calypso singer. It was very romantic. On the deck of the castle we stopped to view the stars and saw a shooting star that fizzled out. It was such a sight to behold! We walked back to our room…turned out all of the lights and watched the stars. There were so many. Never have I seen so many stars.
