My First Blog

This is my first post to my blog. I am very new at this, so please be patient with me.
It has been a while since updating everyone on what we have been doing. Basically, nothing exciting has been happening. Since the last time I sent out an update, our belongings arrived and I have been very busy unpacking and unpacking and unpacking. I did discover a little friend in the house and we played hide and seek. Mainly, he would hide and jump out from a box or something that I moved. He (I have named him Jasper) is a lizard that is about 2 inches long and I swear I heard him giggle a couple of times when I would jump back.

The only time I have been out of the house is to go to the market or the grocery store. I did take a couple friends to the cooking class that I had attended when we first arrived and they had a great time. Afterwards, we went to the market, the hardware store and to the grocery store. We call it "Foraging for Food" here, not grocery shopping. Seems appropriate to me.

On January 20, we celebrated our 10th anniversary.Ron took me to this quaint little French restaurant down from our house and it was great. On Friday, January 22, the last box was unpacked and on Saturday morning, we went to Nevis for the night. Now, that was a real trip. There is a car ferry that takes you from St.Kitts to Nevis and it arrives and leaves at different times of the day. We decided to take the first trip over (9am) so we could get in as much time as possible. Normally you would drive the car on and then drive the car off when you get to your destination, however, not here. It is one way on and one way off. First thing that happens is all the cars have to get into a line (facing the opposite direction of the boat), and then someone comes around and chooses who goes on first. We were second in line to be told to put the car on the boat. All cars have to back up onto the boat and there is someone to guide you on where you need to be and also move the pieces of wood around so that your car doesn't get stuck on the ramp when the water rises and falls. I decided that I would rather watch this event from the outside of the car rather than from the inside, so I waited in a covered shelter until all was done. The depth perception of the locals here is phenominal! I realized that all of these people put their full trust in these guys to make sure the cars get on safe and sound. There wasn't more than 2 inches between the cars. The ride over to the sister island only took about 20 minutes or so and it was time to drive all the cars off. This went much faster and I got in the car for this. It was quite bumpy, but successful.

Once we were on land you could see just how beautiful the island was. Luckily, I remembered to bring a map of Nevis so we would know which way to go to the resort. Even if we turned the wrong way, there is only one road around the island, so we would have found it eventually. The resort was Oaulie Beach Hotel and it is a charming, tucked away gem on the Caribbean Sea. Since we arrived so early, our room wasn't ready, but that was ok with us because we would change into our swim suits and settle down into one of the many lounge chairs under a palm umbrella or a nice shady almond tree. Both are abundant on the resort. We went to the bar and had our welcome drink and then off we went. The lounge chairs were nestled under a palm umbrella with a light breeze and the ocean was at our feet. Heaven is the only way to describe it. I could feel all of the tension of the past couple of weeks just start melting away. AAAhhhhh.....that is until a father decided to ignore his child until she felt the need to scream DAAAAAADYYYYY over and over and over as loud as she could until he answered her. I was very close to yelling for him myself to answer her. Then a gentleman behind us answered his cell phone and was doing business with someone from New York. I think working while laying on the beach should be outlawed. I mean really, you are there to relax, right? I know that is what I was there for. Thank goodness for my iPod. I plugged myself in and started to relax once again. I made sure I didn't play Soca music because people would have thought that I was having an epileptic fit. I just can't seem to keep my hips still when that music is on, so I closed my eyes and let Jack Johnson drown out the kid and the workaholic.

Ron wasn't quite ready to relax, so he grabbed the snorkel gear from the car and went for a swim. Once he was back, he was ready for lunch. The restaurant was behind us, so we grabbed a quick lunch and then our room was ready. Our room was at the end of the resort tucked away just waiting for us. It was called Paradise Cove and as soon as we walked in, we knew why. Inside the room was a king size four poster bed with a canopy and one side of the room as all glass that had a door that opened up to a screened in patio that faced the beach. We were only yards from the beach. Oh, this is going to be great! I see two hammocks right outside that are under palm trees and I can't wait to get out there. We drop our stuff in the room and outside we went. I got one hammock and he got the other one. The pelicans came in to feed and that was so entertaining. We must have layed there for a couple of hours watching them and dozing in and out.

At one point, I could hear someone yelling my name over my music and when I looked up, I saw Ron pretty much hanging upside down in the hammock sideways. He is yelling "Help!" and once I realized it was him who was yelling for me, I looked at him and said, "Do you really need help or are you just fooling around?" He chuckled and let me know that he really needed help. He must be out of practice relaxing, we must work on this some more. Afer a while, we moved to the lounge chairs and were chatting, when I looked up and a monkey was eating the almonds under the tree right beside of us. They were so cute! They entertained us for a while longer and we layed out there for a couple more hours until the sun was about to set and we went to our room to get showered and ready for dinner. On our way to our room though, something had left us 4 large piles of surprises. I looked at Ron and said,"Monkeys don't poop that big, do they?" We hadn't seen anything big enough to make this mess, until I looked up and a big bull walked right behind Ron. I pointed and said,"There is your culprit!" Of course, we couldn't just walk away. We had to take pictures of the poop beside Ron's shoe so you could see how big and also follow the bull to the rest of the herd and take pics of them too. We couldn't be the only ones to see this, right? Once the novelty of this had worn off, we were ready for our showers and something to eat.



While Ron was taking his shower, I watched the last of the sun go down and to my amazement, I saw the green flash. That is something I have never seen before and may never see again. Ron was very jealous and he will not rest until he sees the green flash too. We had a great dinner and settled into our lounge seats on the patio and watched the stars until we just couldn't hold our eyes open anymore.

We hopped up early so we could go for an early morning snorkel and more lounge time before we had to check out at 12. What a great place to snorkel! That is once we got past the gasp coming from our mouth as we got in the cold water. It was worth it though. We must have seen 40 lobters, no joke! I wanted to grab a couple, take them back to the kitchen and see if they would cook them up for free. Ron wouldn't go for it. He wants to keep this place a secret I think so the lobster will grow really big and we can get them later on.

Check out time came and our next adventure was driving around the island. Now, if you remember, there is only one road and this island is significantly smaller than St.Kitts. Total time for the ride was less than an hour. We found ourselves turning onto a dirt road to a place called Coconut Grove and it was this enormous Tiki Hut! There was a huge social area with large couches and oversized coffee tables and a wine bar. The roof was a real thatched roof that took a team of men from Dominica 6 weeks to complete and it was absolutely amazing. We had a great lunch and then it was time to catch the ferry back to St.Kitts. I still didn't stay in the car for the this, I waited and walked on. The trip back was just as pleasant as the first one. Calm waters and great views of both islands.

Once back on St.Kitts, we headed home and dropped our suitcases off and headed toward this little beach I had found that I thought would be great for snorkeling and diving. It has a small beach, a bar, a dive shop, a restaurant and a roped off snorkel area. Ron really didn't want to go in because it was about 4pm by this time and it would be dark soon, but I made him go anyway and he was really glad he did. It is going to be a great place to go for us. I can see this becoming a hang out for us on the weekend with other dive friends. We stayed to watch the sunset, but no green flash this time.

You can see more pics of our weekend on my website under the heading of St.Kitts.

That is all for our anniversary celebration weekend. I will write more later.