Day 9

Our last full day dawns and I am up at 6:30. It takes the sun longer today to clear the clouds on the horizon but when it does, the warm golden light leaves me hopeful of another fine day to round off this marvelous vacation. The weather forecast is less optimistic however but if it rains we'll just take to the pool and I'm sure we can find other things to do together. 

Today, I  leave earlier than usual for the Goddess's offering. On the way back, I take evasive action and the family of donkeys drinking from the hillside runoff can live another bray.

After some TTOL advice-seeking, the Goddess and I headed out to get some cash and fill up the car before returning it tomorrow. We stopped off at Marigot on the return and wandered round the market, smugly assuring ourselves that we were travelers, not tourists, like the people we watched tumbling off the tour buses. (I'm sorry. I'm a terrible snob and there's really not much I can do about it now.)

Back home, clothes are shed, pool is hit and the cheese and wine broken out as we start running down the remaining supplies in the fridge.

I'm up to 200 stokes per swim now. Each stoke moves me a meter ( know this because there are 18 tiles along the swimable length of the pool and each tile is the length of one and a half of my feet, so with rounding, it's at least 8 meters long and one length is 7-8 strokes). By that hugely scientific calculation, I'm swimming 200 meters each time, so around 1km per day, feeling good for it as well, and my pants fit better than they did when I got here. So, all is good.

Our last dinner on the island was at Notre Shangri-la du Caribe. We had a huge paella/jambalaya hybrid with tomatoes, chorizo and fruits de mer and a bottle of Moulin a Vent. The chef outdid himself, according to the Goddess anyway. After dinner, we had our last swim and naked kisses in the rain as a heavy downpour blotted out the moon and the stars. As vacations go, this has been one for the books and has left us looking forward so much to our next trip with friends at Xmas and, hopefully, a return next year to this piece of heaven we have found for ourselves.

Now, with no small degree of tristesse, I wind up today's report and think about tomorrow and the realities of the journey home.