"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." Romans 1:20
We have been marveling over the last 7 days at the wonder and creativity and awesomeness of our God. Not only did He create more than we can comprehend, He gave it to US to enjoy! I can't look at all of this beauty and variety and not be even more in awe of the God who created it.
We had a peaceful, relaxing morning… in fact, the kids let us sleep in. Matthew didn’t come into our room until 6:30, and Maddie waited until close to 7! We ate breakfast and went for a swim, and then we cleaned up to go to brunch. There’s a restaurant on the island called “Miss Lucy’s” that is known for it’s ‘tropical jazz brunch’. Boy, did it live up to it’s hype! The tables were situated outside underneath a HUGE tree, and RIGHT off the shore! It was picturesque, and food and live music were both great. The kids had pancakes (WHY we didn’t think to let them share is beyond me), I had pina colada pancakes (fresh pineapple and coconut!) and Jeff had some sort of fancy poached egg and hollandaise sauce with salmon thing. He loved it. They served the best breakfast potatoes I’ve had, a nice serving of fruit, and we ordered bacon that was delicious. For the first time on this trip, I can honestly say I ate WAY too much. Oh well. For one thing, it was delicious, and for another, when you’re paying THAT much for food, you just can’t stand to see it get thrown away!
We had planned on going straight home, changing clothes and heading to a certain beach, but we were feeling so full and lazy that we ended up hanging around the house and taking it easy for a while. Maddie swam (go figure), and then we braided each other’s hair and painted our toenails. Then finally we all rallied and changed for the beach.
We decided to go to Hawks Nest Beach, another north shore beach (like Trunk and Maho). We’ve decided that driving along North Shore Road is a lot like driving over I-70 in Colorado from Denver to Grand Junction. You climb and climb to the top of the pass, then you descend into the actual ski town itself, then back up to the next pass, and so forth. Here, you climb and climb to a beautiful view looking down on the upcoming beach, then you descend into the beach area, then you climb and climb again, and descend into the next beach area. Those CO mountain roads don’t have ANYTHING on these roads, let me tell you. It takes 45 minutes (beautiful, completely enjoyable minutes, mind you) to travel 9 miles! We have driven on the steepest, curviest grades either of us has ever been on. But I digress, I’m supposed to be talking about Hawks Nest Beach! It was, yet another, beautiful, sandy beach. We lucked up on a spot in the shade – this was by far the most crowded beach we’ve seen (of course it’s Sunday, and a lot of the locals were enjoying a day at the beach, too). There is a decent sized reef not too far out in the bay, so Jeff and I took turns snorkeling with the kids. First he took Matthew, then I wanted to go but Maddie ready, so Matthew went with me. It was going really well, and we were seeing lots of cool fish and coral, but somehow when we turned to come back, we ended up going across the reef instead of around. That’s fine for most, but it makes me SO nervous, because in some places the coral comes up pretty high, which leaves less room between you and the surface, and all I could think of was Matthew rubbing the coral accidently, or an urchin, and I began to feel trapped and slightly panicked. SO, I calmly grabbed his hand and swam swiftly and steadily across the reef and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the edge of the reef and beautiful sand. By the time we got to shore, my knees were wobbly (not from being too tired, just from the adrenaline rush). Later, Maddie wanted to swim with me, so I told her we’d swim around the EDGE of the reef, and I was very, VERY away of it the entire time. We would venture slightly in, but then go back to the edge. The whole experience of snorkeling is so incredible… beautiful and freeing and humbling and eerie all at the same time. On our way back to shore, we were swimming right by a lady, and three fish were swimming right at her feet! We were just a few feet from the shore, and she could feel them. We turned from her, and lo and behold, there was a ray just a couple of feet from us! We looked at him for few minutes, and then we stood up to tell Matthew. We could see him from the surface – he was right in the first few feet of the shore where folks were swimming. Pretty soon he headed back out.
After some paddle ball and resting in the shade, we headed into Cruz Bay for dinner. Tonight we ate at Café Roma, another restaurant that was recommended to us. We ordered two “individual” size pizzas, and they were DELICIOUS. The one Jeff and Maddie shared was the best pizza we’ve ever had… even Jeff thought so. Maybe all the garlic on it will help with ward off some of the mosquitos.
We ate pretty late, so we just came back, enjoyed a shower (there’s no shower like a shower at the beach), played UNO and then read.
Another day in paradise.
