A whole lotta nothing...

...is what we accomplished today.  We had a short night, rudely interrupted by a large "thud" from somewhere in the house about 1:30 am.  We spent 15 minutes futilely trying to identify where the noise had come from.  Andrew solved the problem with earplugs.  I listened to the woodpecker hammer on the tree outside of our window.  When I finally got up to make coffee about 6 am, I discovered the pineapple we bought yesterday had leapt from the counter and rolled under a bar stool.  Mystery thud solved.  Now if only we could do something about the birds. 

When Andrew got up about 8:30, we geared up and trooped out to the reef.  Me in the kayak and Andrew with his flippers, snorkel & mask.  We weren't but a few minutes when I head "blurfffss flurpsss"come out of his snorkel and saw him take off in the opposite direction at top speed.  In case you are wondering, "top speed" while snorkeling is not very fast.  I meandered after him in the kayak until he surfaced to report that he had spied, and then tried to follow, a large ray.  Link to the video of the great chase is here, if you're so inclined.

It was a beautiful morning today - clear and calm.  However, with the cruise ships coming to Roatan on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, it wasn't long before a couple of excursion boats showed up and off-loaded what seemed to be 100 people on to the reef.  It was comical to see all their heads bobbing around out there.  What a traffic jam!  Oh well, after more than an hour in the sun, we were finished, anyway.  

After protein shakes made with that sneaky pineapple, we settled in with our books for a few hours.  Ok, it was more than a few hours.  It was many, many hours.  In the middle of that, Andrew had a nap.  I wished for one, but it didn't happen.   I hope, in my next life, I am a napper.  I also hope for better hair, but that's another post.

Andrew getting some sun, pre-nap.

By about 4:30, it had cooled off enough to take a walk up the beach to see what we could see.  The "town" of Sandy Bay follows the beach and is comprised mostly of small, rustic homes where local folks reside.  There are also several ex-pat-owned homes, which are easy to distinguish by the size, general upkeep, and "fancy" car in the driveway (meaning it was manufactured post-Y2K and has all the tires inflated).  Otherwise, there isn't much to see.   The roads are sand, like in Caye Caulker.  The people are friendly.  Kids are plentiful and we can't help notice that they are often engaged in activities that would certainly initiate CPS reports at home:  swimming unsupervised in the ocean, building a sand castle in the middle of the road, making a fire in the corner of the yard.  Adults are always visible, but seem mostly unconcerned with what is happening.  Equally surprising, is that all children appear to have all their limbs, hair, and other necessary body parts.  They are lovely, social little creatures who wave and shout hello at everyone who passes.  They are not hitting each other with sticks or pushing each other under the waves or in to the fire.  Seems like it's working just fine.

   After our stroll, we played with the dogs and watched the sun set before making a simple dinner of fish and salad.  Just as Andrew finished up the day's dishes, we had our 3rd power outage of this trip.  We actually went more than 24-hours without one and I had, optimistically, just reset all the clocks.  I won't make that mistake again.  This one lasted only an hour and, with iPads to read on, the time goes by without much hardship.  Like the whole day...

Andrew with Mia & Zoe.

Perfection