A Different Beach Walk

Debi and I met our friend, Kristen, in West End for a walk. We headed west toward West Bay and soon ran out of nice sand beach, encountering instead lots of rocks to scamper over. Debi and I were wearing flip flops (or were barefooted part of the time) - not exactly prepared for walking over rocks, and even though most of the rocks were smooth, they were also slick when wet. We walked as far as we dared before turning around. Next time we'll wear more appropriate shoes - Tevas! and maybe make it all the way to West Bay. It is a very beautiful walk, even on a cloudy day. Here are some photos from that walk on Wednesday. We've decided to hold off on the longer walk to West Bay until all the mainlanders go home after Semana Santa..

Great! The power just went off - first time in 2 days. It is hot again today and many, many extra people are on the island. The water is looking really good. Right after my siesta in the hammock!

Happy Birthday Don! (or Feliz Cumpleanos)

This one's for you...

"will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?" - the Beatles

Yep, you guessed it, Don is 64 today. I can scarcely believe it. Back when that song was released, and we were quite young, 64 sounded ancient. Now that it is here, it may sound old, but it doesn't look, act or feel old on Don. He's still going strong, as amazing as always. But even if he wasn't, my answer would still be the same: yes, I'll still need you and I'll still feed you, now that you're 64.

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Don examining a piece of driftwood - always curious.

One of our favorite beach spots.

At Lawson's Rock - his elegant island look. He wears it well, doesn't he?

On board the Gypsea Sol.

Don - my rock on the rocks.

This is perhaps my favorite picture of Don. He still looks fabulous!

Happy birthday, my love!

Power, Paint and Rain

We have been plagued with frequent power outages this week, that coupled with increased temperatures has made it a mite bit uncomfortable. The power failures really peaked on Monday when we lost power 3 times in one day. Shortly after my last post, the lights went out again. Sigh. I really don't like going to bed at 7:30, but there's not much to do in complete darkness. Our second fluorescent lantern was lacking batteries and we had only 4 "D" batteries on hand, only half of what was required. We had our candles, of course, but it is difficult to read by candlelight for very long, so I opted to use one of the flashlights to read for awhile.

Yesterday we awoke to a nice clear morning but soon clouds began moving in. The "cold front" was coming in, bringing cooler, breezier weather. We were inspired to continue painting, so I began all the prep work. As I hauled out the roller tray and paint, I realized that we had used and discarded both rollers. Rats! I called Dennis who had a spare roller he was willing to give us and met him at his gate to receive it. His roller was for rough surfaces, however, and did not want to cover my smooth walls. I abandoned that effort, got in the car and drove down to Roland's Ferrateria across the road from our church. They had no smooth rollers so I settled for 2 semi-rough wall rollers and a replacement roller for Dennis. Back home, I quickly realized that our smooth wall was not impressed with the semi-rough rollers. Sigh. Either that or they were just of lousy quality. In any case, they clearly were not going to do the job. Don, meantime, was busily doing all the trim work with his little brush.

I was faced with a choice - give up or drive into Coxen Hole, 11 km away. Now, this may not sound like a big deal, but I have never driven into town before, and if you've been reading my blogs for awhile, you know that this can be an adventure, especially if a cruise ship is in port, and I had seen the Norwegian Pearl sail by earlier, and it happens to be Semana Sante. My determination overcame my reluctance and I bravely set off alone. Not bad driving in. I zipped into Serrano's, the island version of Ace Hardware, got 2 smooth wall rollers AND a "hurricane" oil lamp and oil. Woo hoo! This was considerably cheaper than buying 8 "D" batteries. Now I needed to turn around and head back. The road is a narrow 2 lane affair lined with sidewalks, taxis, and people everywhere. The only places to turn around are narrow driveways on one side; the ocean is on the other side. I couldn't pull in and back out with all the congestion, so I kept going, past the cruise ship dock, past the endless line of taxis and vans, past the line of drivers standing along the road, visiting while waiting for a fare. Drove probably a mile to Gravel Bay before I could safely turn around. Then I had to drive back through all that congestion before I could turn up the road out of Coxen Hole. Made it! The drive back on the main road was still not too bad, although traffic did get heavier as I approached Sandy Bay.

I got home just as the power went off again and a big rainstorm blew in. Very strong winds, very high waves, very hard rain for awhile, and oh, so nice and cool! I love the smell of rain.
I picked up painting again and these rollers did work better, but I soon discovered that this can of paint just wasn't very good quality and did not want to roll on smoothly. I really had to work at it. The color is nice though, a light turquoise. Then we realized that the one gallon was not going to be enough. Good grief. Fortunately, we had the gallon of really lousy paint - same shade - so we mixed some of that with the almost-gone paint and managed to finish the job. The rain stopped and as it got lighter, we could see that the paint had gone on thicker and shinier in some places and was very thin, almost absent in other places. Crummy paint.

We quickly ate pb&j sandwiches to avoid having to open the fridge while the power was still out and then I drove up to church to meet my friend, Tia, for a walk on the beach. It began to rain while we were sitting out on the dock talking, but it felt good. The waves were really rolling. We walked through the grounds of Anthony's Key to reach the beach and noticed many more mainlander guests there plus many more islanders playing in the water than usual. All the schools are out this holiday week. By the time I got back home, the power was back on.

I decided to make most of the dinner preparations early, while I could still see and while I still had power - just in case. It was a cool night, perfect for baking a yummy taco pizza. I make the dough from scratch - pretty tasty! Kellie hollered down the hill just as we sat down to eat. I went out to see what she wanted and she said "turn on your phone". I did and she called to see if we wanted to come up and play Wii, but we were pretty tired, ready to just sit and watch a movie or read and not really trusting the power to stay on much longer. Maybe we'll go up and play today.

Honduran Song and Dance

Last night we went down to "our" beach, just down the hill, to Tranquil Seas, a small boutique resort right on the beach. The Englishmen owners had invited us to come enjoy the Honduran music, dancers and food. We thought they might serve some type of island food, but their chef had cooked up paella, a Spanish dish of rice and seafood (or chicken), and served with a glass of sangria. We got there in time to watch the sunset.

The dancers were quite good, performing traditional Honduran folk dances in costume. They did not have much space to move around though; I'm sure it would have been even better on a larger dance floor. When we first arrived, a guitarist was playing and singing. He was followed by a group of musicians who performed on guitar, sax, keyboard and sang lively Honduran songs. And it was not ridiculously loud either.

Our food was good - well, my seafood paella was better than Don's with chicken. We ate with a young Canadian woman, Sally, who is staying at Tranquil Seas and whom we had met on the dock the day before, and our Canadian neighbor, Wenda. Sally is getting her diving certification. Her goal is to go back to Antarctica and dive! Yikes.

This is the beginning of Semana Sante, Holy Week. For many Hondurans, it is vacation time. The mainlanders come to the island to hang out on the beaches and party, and many islanders go to the mainland to visit family. The ex-pats and other locals generally stay home. We've been warned that the beaches are packed solid, forget trying to get into a beach restaurant, and stock up on groceries early before the hoards descend upon the grocery stores. We've done the grocery stock up and this morning after our Sandy Bay beach walk, Debi and I went to West End to buy our fresh vegetables from the produce trucks parked along the beach. We saw these children playing in the water at Half Moon Bay. Ordinarily there aren't locals or mainlanders in the water on a Monday. There weren't too many people in West End yet - the majority arrive mid-week.

We keep having power outages. Still don't know the reason unless it is just that it is hot and more people are running air-conditioners. Today the power was out from 12:30-2:00, on for about 30 minutes and then went off again at 2:30 and didn't come back on until around 6:30. Kellie is out of school this week for Semana Sante and came down with her Monopoly game at 2:30. We played on the deck until nearly 6:00 when I had to stop and make a quick dinner while I could still see. Just as I finished cooking, the power came back on. We'll see how long this will last.

The Potter and The Clay

I've written before about our pastor, Chuck, being a former potter and the great illustrations he brings to his sermons. Today was an exceptional one. I knew we were in for something good when we walked in and this is what we saw.

He began by explaining that this clay sculpture represents him at 37 years - happy, full of knowledge, excellent potter, not a Christian. He said clay doesn't have much value, doesn't cost much, it's what the clay becomes that gives it value.

This is him after he fell flat on his face, suddenly aware of the emptiness of his life. No real value. He was humbled by this. The red paint represents his salvation.

He then began to demonstrate throwing a pot - a very physical, demanding job. The potter must be focused, must concentrate, feel for and identify any impurities in the clay and pull them out. The clay must be firmly centered (on Jesus) or it will collapse. The clay requires lots of water.

The potter pulls the clay to its maximum potential, testing to see if the clay is good and worth the effort. If so, he knocks it down and begins the second pull.

Near the end of the second pulling - the most difficult for the potter - pull too hard or too far and it may collapse. He's using a "rib" used to shape it into something beautiful.

Sometimes, it looks beautiful on the outside (as above) but is weak or full of hidden flaws or full of pride. God sees the inside; sometimes he has to break us down, cut away everything that is not of value, not serviceable. He poured the pink vase (seen in the first photo, representing the alabaster jar and the sacrifice of self) into the water bucket, then poured more red paint over the clay, again signifying the the purifying blood of Jesus, and used the "perfumed" water to rework the remaining clay and reshape it into something very serviceable. Maybe not as beautiful on the outside, but inside it is perfect.

And when he finished, it looked very serviceable indeed. He then made threw another pot while we sang a final song and reflected on all that he had told us. Powerful.

Haze, Heat and Sulfur

I've mentioned how hazy it has been here all week along with the increased temperatures. This is one of the better sunsets from the week.

This shows the haziness better. I still don't know the reason for it. While it's not as obvious during the daytime, it is still present. And this morning, when we returned from town, there was a very strong sulfur smell wafting through the air on the breeze. At least we had a breeze, but it was smelly.

Yesterday was the hottest day thus far, 97 degrees outside and 95 inside - no breeze at all and then the power went out, leaving us with out fans to push around the hot air, and even worse, without the one air-conditioned room that is our haven on these toasty days. Fortunately, that occurred late in the day and was only off for 1-1/2 hours or so.

This morning we woke up around 4:30 a.m. when the power went off again and the APC beeped. This time it was off for 3-1/2 hours. Not so bad early in the morning when it is still relatively cool, although the humidity is always very high in the mornings.

Sunset in West End, ordinarily a very pretty spot for sunsets.

More success today! We went back to immigration in Coxen Hole, taking Merlin with us to interpret. She laughs and jokes so much, she had the officer laughing. We encountered no difficulty at all. He extended our visas for 30 days, so we'll have to return next month, but just charged us the usual $20. per person per month fee. Much cheaper than a trip out of the country. We were both prepared to pay considerably more (shhhhh! don't say a word!). He filled out the paperwork, then had us take it across the street to the bank to pay the fee and get a receipt. So he wasn't pocketing the money. I understand that there has been a crack-down on immigration corruption lately. Just as we were finishing up, our friend Kristen came in to renew her visa. It was her third attempt this week.

We bought some fish and shrimp from the street vendor. Shrimp season ends on the last day of April, so we stuck some in the freezer to tide us over. Earlier in the week, Merlin called to ask if we wanted some just-caught fish and when we answered affirmatively, sent the fisherman down to our house. We bought a nice 3 pound red snapper and a 2 pound jackfish - I don't know what kind of jack and there are several different types, but it was delicious! I cut off the head, even though we grilled the whole fish. I'm not crazy about looking at the poor thing's head while eating. Merlin was horrified! She couldn't believe I would waste her favorite part of the fish. I couldn't believe anyone in their right mind would actually eat the head, except maybe a dog. She boils it, pulls off what meat there is and makes a soup. I'll save the next one for her. I'm sure not going to eat it.

I had some of the fish left over and made fish tacos with cilantro slaw the next day - fantastic! Don won't eat fish tacos, only beef. It's funny how different our tastebuds can be - fish heads, fish tacos...

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Peace

Debi and I often see this egret on our morning walks along the beach. He's so graceful; he just embodies the word "peace". Our walks are always peaceful and enjoyable, but today's walk was hot. We've decided that we may need to start our walk earlier than 7:30 now that it is heating up, say 6:30 a.m. There was no breeze this morning, so it really felt hot.

Success! Our RECO adventure ended well. The inspectors came out yesterday to ensure that we really did have electrical service running from Merlin's meter and that all looked ok. So, today we gathered up all the documents that we thought they could possibly ask for, including the papers for our property purchase. We had left our final signed copy in St. Louis, along with our paid property tax receipt from last year - good, safe place for them. The office girl had indicated that they needed a signed copy of the purchase agreement - what to do? We had a copy of the final draft with us, but no signatures. We discussed contacting our attorney here to see if he had kept a copy, but Merlin said he wouldn't have, all copies are filed in Tegucigulpa on the mainland. Don decided to type up and print out a signature page, have us all sign it and date it and see if she would accept it. We took it in and she didn't even look at it! Just stuck it in a file where it will no doubt collect dust. She asked if the inspection had happened and what the guys said about it!! I said we passed, she wrote out a receipt, copied our passports (which she had not told us to bring in - good thinking, Don!), had us sign the application for a new meter, took our money and we were out the door in 10 minutes or so. Tomorrow the meter-change guys will come out and switch meters. We can cross that task off our list. Friday we'll tackle the final challenge - getting another 90-day visa.

This morning we learned that our dear friend, Nelda Hawley, had passed away. Alzheimer's had slowly taken away her mind and left just a shell of the woman she once was, a beautiful, gentle soul. We will miss her, but rejoice knowing that she has received her heavenly reward and been reunited with her beloved Roger.