Island Paradise Day 33

Yesterday, just as the sun was setting and I was beginning to prepare supper for our guests, the power went out again. We had just bought groceries, so the fridge was stocked full, so we hoped it would not last long ruining yet another fridge full of food. We lit some candles and I carried on cooking while Stephane played some music on his guitar. I was in a great mood because Stephane’s sister brought with her 4 bottles of good wine from Canada. It was so great to taste a decent New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which we polished off before dinner, and a lovely Pinot Noir with our Filet Mignon! Good wine, good company, good food by candlelight, and the sound of waves crashing on shore – it does not get much better than that – but it did!

After our candlelight supper we all went out on the deck and were mesmerized by bio-luminescent waves! It was stunning and the first time we have seen this in the ocean. As each wave turned over, it lit up like blue flame, and twinkled all the way into the sand. I presume this is the same algae that caused the water in the lagoon to glow but a different thing than the glow in the dark worms at the full moon. Such entertainment we have here at Jack Neal beach!

By bedtime last night the wind had died down, and the power was still out, so we gathered up what we could from the fridge and took it over to Susan and Mike’s to store in their fridge. Given how often the power goes out here it is incredible to me that not everyone has a generator or solar back up power. Needless to say, with no power, there was no electricity to run fans or air-conditioning, and it was a long, miserable, very hot night.

Our guests slept on the dock in the hammock, to try to catch a few breezes, and Steph and I tried sleeping on every different bed and couch in the house, but could find no space with so much as a whisper of wind. We just could not fall asleep. By one a.m. we were sitting on the porch in wooden chairs simply moaning about how tired we were. Shortly after that, Natalie came in – she had been eaten alive by mosquitoes, and had not slept a wink either.

I finally determined that our best hope for sleep was to take cold showers, and lay on the bed wet, allowing evaporation from our skin to cool us. It worked, and finally we slept a few hours. The good news is we awoke to power which came on around 7 a.m. so we could have coffee – almost as important as good wine! Unfortunately it was back off by 8:30 a.m.

This morning we spent a few hours showing off our reef, already Natalie has seen a giant sea turtle and an eagle ray. Next up - strawberry margaritas.