It always happens on Day 5. Day 5 of a vacation for me is the day that I realize that I have actually finally relaxed. I have talked about this before, but it really is kind of like clockwork. Halfway through the day you look around and realize that you haven’t worried about work once today.

Whew.

Of course, with that comes the knowledge that tomorrow is day 6, and the following day is, well, we won’t even talk about that, now will we?

Today did not start in the normal way. It was quite overcast and threatening looking so we had breakfast in the villa and read for a while before heading down to the beach a little after 10.

Well the beach was kind of a bust. We got our chairs set up just the way we wanted them when the rain started. It was a surprising amount of rain for a few clouds, and then it built and built. We hid out in the Waikiki snack bar for a few minutes that turned into an hour, certain that at any moment the wind would blow the clouds through and it would be hot and sunny again. No such luck. It continued to pour -sometimes in torrents - for a couple more hours. We slogged our sodden way back to the Villa and did a little more reading while we figured out what to do.

At around one, it was apparent that things were clearing up, so we all piled into the jeep to head to Orange Fever for a pizza. On the way through that long parking lot we were stopped by a nice young man that wanted to give us scratch tickets for fabulous prizes! Well of course, one of the tickets had four 7s (or some such) and was THE LUCKIEST TICKET OF ALL! All you have to do to claim your prize is to attend a brief introduction to the new Westin Dawn Beach. Er, no, says I. Jacob, with a keen eye for a deal worked hard to convince us that even if we only got the $500 camera prize, it’s still totally worth it to have a look at this resort. It wasn’t until we stuffed him full of pizza that he would hush up about it.

We had intended to stay at Orange Fever for the rest of the afternoon, but while we were eating somebody set up a big PA system next door and started blasting out music. This would have been fine, but when you randomly chop and mix the songs up in DJ Fashion, and augment them with fake turntable scratch sounds and announcements like “We’re just getting warmed up!” it loses its appeal to an old geezer like me. Jacob was all for staying. We ended up back at Waikiki where, buy 2 pm not much was going on, so we got our choice of location.

The next couple of hours was pretty great, the weather had really decided to behave, but it was WINDY. I would imagine it was the better part of 30 knots for the rest of the day. This means that there was salt spray everywhere, including my camera lens, but it also made for great swells. Jacob the younger had a fantastic time diving into the surf again and again and again. I joined him for a while and got tossed around pretty good, and Matthew joined us as well, but for sheer devotion to the sport, you can hardly outdo Jacob.

Speaking of wind, the waves got the better of a boat moored in front of around Pedro’s. We noticed at lunch that only the bow of what must have been a 20 foot fiberglass boat of some kind was sticking out of the water. Didn’t seem to bother anybody.

This evening we decided to treat ourselves of a family meal in GC. I had thought a lot about Carol’s fave Ocean 82, and Bistrot Caraibes, but as we were strolling up and down the street looking at menus, I had a nice brief chat with the fellow from La Villa, who convinced me to come in for Prix Fixe.

Well, we had a simply superb meal. Food fantastic, ambiance great, service impeccable. OMG dessert. I feel like going back again tomorrow. At the end of the meal they serve their own particular type of rum liqueur, it’s a coconut raspberry pineapple (I may have this completely wrong) mixture that comes out like pinkish milk. But it was sophisticated and delicious. The host at one point insisted that we mustn’t be shy and help ourselves. Later he came to say he was depending on us to finish the bottle. It was really good, but you can only enjoy so much of something sweet like that. Just as it seemed time for the bill, another younger fellow came over with a Patron bottle of the rum liqueur he had made himself, and of which it seems he was proud. This was a more standard sort of banana vanilla liqueur, but it was very good, and a little stronger than most that you get.

We finally waddled out 2-1/2 hours after we sat down, utterly satisfied. You wonder if you’ve made the right choice when you go the Grand Case. The truth is, it’s hard to buy a bad meal there. The level of competition is so high you’ll just never survive.

I have to admit I am a little gun-shy about the French-side tipping thing. After decades of tossing on that extra percentage, not tipping seems very very odd. Tonight I tossed in a $20 for a petit boire, then we took off quick lest we get caught being cheapskates.

So, one more full day. We’ll not decide what to do until we’ve looked out to sea.

This relaxation stuff could get to a fella.