Day 11
As I was headed to bed Saturday night, John told me that he probably wasn’t going to be able to walk with me in the morning. Periodically he has issues with his ankle. It will swell and cause him pain and it started bothering him yesterday. I told him that it was no problem, but that I’d still get up and walk the Club O part of the beach. Then I started to wonder if I’d be able to walk. I had twisted my ankle a little when Marissa and I were exploring yesterday and right before bedtime it suddenly became very stiff and sore. I took some ibuprofen and hoped that when I woke up it would be ok. At 4:45, I gingerly got out of bed, took a few steps to test it – still a bit stiff, but I just took some more ibu and tried to do my best to quietly exercise and stretch and tiptoe out the door at 5:30.

The pre dawn sky was beautiful. The sun rising over the clouds to one side and the full moon over the mountains on the other. I did one lap up and down the beach, when John strolled (more like limped) on to the beach to at least watch the sky, even though he wasn’t able to walk.

After the walk, the morning ritual continued with the making of coffee and heading back to the beach. As I sat on my chair, I noticed, about 6 feet away, a sand crab. I sat there intrigued, watching it do its thing. This little crab would crawl down into the hole, disappear for about 30 seconds and then come back out of the hole. I found myself wishing that I were able to sneak down that hole behind it, to watch him gather the sand and to see how far down it was actually going. When it came out of the hole, it would walk about 18 inches away, toss the sand from it’s claws, stop, look, go back to the top of the hole again, stop again, almost as if to rest and contemplate having to go back and do it again. Then it would go back and do it again.

I sat there for about 5 minutes watching this over and over, but because there was so little breeze and we had some rain overnight, the bugs were relentless. So I decided to leave the crab to tend to his business without an audience, and head back to the room to proceed with my morning. I’m sure there is some sort of spiritual lesson in all of this and at the time I thought that I would have to reflect on that further throughout the day. Then it dawned on me that yesterday, we came across a rather large snail making its way across the path as we headed down to the beach. John had the camera and took a picture, but I hadn’t thought about much since then. If nothing more, I’m glad that I have had the chance to slow down enough from the fast pace of life and have the opportunity to appreciate God’s creation.

Over the years, I’ve come to know that life is short and that one has to make the most of each day and opportunity, because we never know if we are going to have another one. John and I used to talk about ‘when we retire we’ll do this and that...’ but having had some health issues of my own and having known too many people who never lived long enough to enjoy the fruits of their life’s labor, I want to do my best to now enjoy the things in life bring me joy but that once may have only been a part of a plan in the future (hence, our trips here). Even though it may be a bit of a financial stretch, I’ve said more than once on this trip that this is what we work for the other 50 weeks of the year!

As I write this, it’s now almost 8am and John will be making his way to the boutique to get a morning croissant for Marissa. I’ve only had one this week - too many other wonderful food and alcohol choices; guava juice with Capt Morgan at breakfast, gouda on baguette at lunch, coladas at the Perch happy hour, Etna ice cream in the evenings, and MaDouDou just about any darned time - just to name a few…I really don’t want to go home and not fit in my clothes! - but since I’m now in a smell the roses kind of mood, I’ll think I’ll splurge and have one and savor each and every bite! Perhaps I’ll skip the guava with rum this morning…or perhaps not!

John brought back 2 extra croissants…chocolate and almond…I took half of each one down to the beach (along with my guava juice with rum!). I have previously had the chocolate, and it was very good, but the almond was amazing! Oh, the simple pleasures of life!

I was hoping to be able to watch the sand crab in action again, but alas, the beach tractor had already come by to rake the beach and the crab and the hole were gone...ah, the futility of life!

The sun was very hot early on. I found myself cooling off in the water much more frequently than usual. It wasn’t until late morning that the breeze picked up and gave some relief. Lynette and James checked out of their room, dropped off their luggage to our room and joined us on the beach for a bit. The morning passed by quickly and it was soon time for them to go back to our room to shower, say goodbye and head off for their return home.

Every day of this trip, Marissa and I have strolled down the beach to see Luiz, as I have wanted to get a new pareo from him, but he hasn’t been there. Finally today, he was there. He’s been taking some time away from the beach to get some other work done at home. We chatted a bit, and I am very happy to have my new pareo.

We missed Harry and Kathy today, as they were going to Anguilla, but as we sat on the beach this afternoon, we came to meet Randy (Rastaman) and Dany who as it turned out were sitting right next to us. Before we knew it, it was late afternoon and the decision had already been made to go to Calmos Café for dinner. We have wanted to go here every trip since we started coming to SXM, especially on Sunday night with live music, but have never made it there. What a mistake that was! We had such a great time! We arrived early because we wanted to make sure that we would catch the sunset. The reggae band was just setting up. We ordered drinks and rib appetizers and for our dinners I had the salmon with curry sauce special, Marissa had the seafood mixed plate and John had a cheeseburger. Shortly after we ordered, we saw Harry and Kathy come in and we invited them to join us. The band soon started and our dinners arrived. Everything about the evening was wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed our meals, the sunset, the music and our friends. We also saw Randy and Dany there, but by the time they arrived we had already finished our meals and there wasn’t room at our table to have them join us. It was very crowded they were having trouble getting a table, but I think after a short wait, they were able to be seated.

Now that we’ve tried a lot of places that have been on our lists over the years, we are now at the point where we know what we really like and will go back to those places every trip. Calmos will definitely be one of them!

We then headed back to the resort and we’re now thinking about how tomorrow is our last full day of the trip. I don’t expect that we’ll do much of anything different than we’ve done every day, except maybe take fewer sun breaks, since we’ll want to be soaking up every minute while we can!