It has been a wonderful first week! Me (Dan) and my wife (Jodi) have been absent for 7 years and I never realized how much we missed being here but we have great joy introducing our daughter (Emma - 7) to the island for the first time. I apologize to her every day because she is having a "bad" time. She usually splashes me and swims away with a giggle.
The last few years have been very hard and stressful for me and Jodi for a variety of reasons: personal, professional, health (I trashed my knee ) and are the reasons we have been away for so long....once here it took me several days to "relax".
This time we came with Jodi's sister and brother in law's family as well. They have 5 kids ages 11-18. This makes for complicated days but we have developed a rhythm. We all can be broken down into 2 distinct groups. The action group, that wants to explore, hike and discover and the beach/swim group that swim snorkel and chill. I am squarely in the latter group.
The action group (Brother in law and some kids) explores a part of the island almost every day. Discovering hiking trails, tidal pools and generally driving around discovering. A subset even caught an early morning cheap flight to Saba to hike to the top of the island and discover some of the local vendors including bringing home some Saba spice rum. Good stuff.
Jodi has been a fantastic camp director. We love to cook but Jodi even more so, and she has been going above and beyond cooking for the entire crew. There is a grill nearby at the Simpson Bay resort B pool and we are driving the guests crazy with whole spatchcocked chickens and other goodies.
For me, as I mentioned, it took me a couple days to relax and then I fell ill on day three. I stayed in bed and slept most of the day. It made me depressed, and grumpy…. but I bounced back and now 100%. Now the days are developing a rhythm form me. Coffee on the balcony…to take it all in….then swimming and snorkeling in the morning getting Emma to rest in the aft, then some late in the day pool time with Emma and the other kids. It took me a couple of days to dial it in, but snorkeling off of the SBR (Pelican) beach has been fantastic. Many fish, sea creatures and yesterday I was blessed with a juvenal sea turtle. I am making Jodi take some time off today and sending her to the beach. She is not allowed to return until she meets the turtle.
Final note the Simpson Bay resort thus far has been fantastic! For our large group it works out great. My wife bought a time share 24 years ago (before we married) at bargain basement prices and over the years we transitioned to the "points" system. I would not recommend a TS, but we have really made it work and our accumulated points allowed us 2 weeks in 3 apartments for 10 people. IT works…for us.
The days are good.
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