Well, mostly dead. Apparently, at one point I started yelling in my sleep. Alan put a hand on me to calm me, I woke up and he asked if I were ok. I said it was just a dream and went back to sleep almost immediately.
In the morning, I asked him what I’d been doing before he asked if I were ok and he said, “Screaming.” In the dream, I’d been yelling at some sort of creature, “Go away! You go away!” but in the dream, my mouth wouldn’t work properly and I sounded like Frankenstein’s monster right after animation…inarticulate. Alan said that’s exactly what I sounded like when I woke him. Weird. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled in my sleep before.
We got up, I showered and we walked to the Village Inn for coffee/tea. We had a coffee maker in our room, which would work for Alan, but I had no way to make tea. (If you’re thinking, “Duh…use the coffee maker.” you are obviously not a tea drinker…)
We picked up the paper outside our door and took it with us. We sat and sipped and read for a while then shuffled off back to the hotel room. Alan left a message with his nephew to arrange a time for us to get together. We headed out for Honeymoon Island. We wanted to look for the tiny little crabs we’d seen the last time, look for shells and generally beachify ourselves.
We got there a little before noon, paid our $8 park fee and headed into the park. We stopped at the main beach and walked over the dunes (via the approved, raised walkway) to the shore.
The beach here is powdered white sand and there numerous wooden benches backing up to the dunes. We walked along the packed part of the sand looking for interesting ‘stuff.’ We found lots of sponges left out of the water by the receeding tide, lots of broken shell parts and piles of sea weed.
We walked around the bend of the shoreline and the wind was cut a bit by the dunes. The breakers got a little smaller and it was a little more pleasant.
We found the spot where we think we found the crabs but it was all under water. The tide was a lot higher than the last time. We walked back to the car and decided to eat lunch at the café there, kill some time to let the tide go out a little more, then head back to crab hunting.
We had the Cuban sandwich special (tasty!) on the deck of the café bldg. Then drove to the other end of the island to see what’s there.
We took a nature trail through various ecosystems on a spit of land. We saw several osprey nests and ospreys and Alan got some fantastic footage of an osprey on its nest then taking wing from it.
We spent over an hour walking along the trails. We sat down once so Alan could text his kids and we stopped several times to admire ospreys or read the plaques. Mostly we walked.
We got back to the park/playground area where we left the car and headed back to the other end of the island to crab hunt.This time we put on beach shoes so we could wade through shallow water if needs be.
We crossed the dunes and headed down (up?) the beach, same as before. The water hadn’t dropped a lot but we did find more shells and ‘stuff’ along the water’s edge.
The biggest excitement was when I saw a fin arcing through the water off shore. My first thought was, “Shark!” but no…it was dolphins. Alan and I stood and watched them until we couldn’t see them any more.
We continued on and found the crabby spot. The water was still pretty high. We saw hundreds…maybe thousands… of the little holes with their piles of sand balls outside the entrance but didn’t see a single little crab.
We gave up, returned to the car and went back to the room. We showered and chilled a bit then headed out to supper. We decided to try The Lobster Pot, a restaurant recommended by a colleague of Alan’s. Besides, we had a coupon.
We found the place. No wait! It didn’t look like much from the outside but inside it was white tablecloths, a single fresh rose and candle on every table with quiet piano music wafting through the rooms.
We were seated at a table and perused the menus. We split a bowl of lobster bisque…very odd…I’d never seen brown lobster bisque before and it tasted more like beef gravy than lobster. It was tasty…just odd.
I had red chili, honey-glazed salmon and Alan had Maine lobster tail. Both were phenomenal. The herbed vinaigrette dressing on my salad was fabulous and Alan said his bleu cheese was too. After last night’s gluttony fest, it was nice to have a ‘lighter’ meal and not leave feeling stuffed.
We got back to the room and chilled. I journalled, Alan read more of his boot for the trip…Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys. Periodically, he’d break into laughter an dread me a section out loud.
Joe (Alan’s nephew) called and we made plans to get together with them on Thursday.The end of our first full day!
Alan on one of our rest breaks while on the Osprey nature trail.
I'm guessing this is why it's called the Osprey trail. There's actually another bird in the nest but you can't see it in this picture.
