Not Doing Enough, Are You Crazy

Before last evening, I thought maybe Dave was not having enough fun or adventure during his week here. That changed yesterday.

On Tuesday night I called my friend Justin to ask if there was any way he would open the kayak excursion for Dave and I. He said that he was going to take Ben from the Governor's office and a few of Ben's friends on a kayak trip on Wednesday at 5:00pm. I asked if Dave and I could tag along.

So Wednesday evening Dave and I kayaked up South Creek with Ben's friends, who also happened to be the new Governor, the Governor's family, and all of the staff from the Governor's office.

We kayaked up the creek. We kayaked down the canal. We kayaked through the South Creek pond. We finished up at 7:30, took quick showers, and hustled off to Chinese Joan's for dinner at 8:00.

August 20 was my 20 year wedding anniversary. Deneen is 2000 miles away, so for our anniversary I had dinner with Dave and Justin. Just as we sat down David and Katja showed up so we had them sit with us as well. Dinner is always the entire evening on Grand Turk. Tonight was no exception. We finished sometime around 11:00.

This afternoon, we met up with Justin again. He invited us to Kayak over to Gibbs Cay to swim with the stingrays. So for this adventure, at 3:00pm four of us kayaked approximately 2 miles over the bank to the outlying island of Gibbs Cay. After traversing the waves and wind for 40 minutes, we banked the kayaks just as an excursion of 30 people arrived to the cay from the cruise ship that was in today.

Justin had brought $5 worth of conch to feed the stingrays. For lunch I showed Dave how to eat raw conch sashimi style; wash it in the ocean, bite off the head, eat it down to the claw, spit out the skin.

We left the beach and walked around the back side of the Cay. We snorkeled off the south end for a while. After the excursion people began to load back onto their boat, we snorkeled with the stingrays.

I have seen a stingray three different times snorkeling here. They have all been fairly small, abou tone foot in diameter. I though this is what we would find,a bunch of small stingrays. Instead, we were surrounded by a half dozen four to five foot wide stingrays wanting food and attention. The stingrays swim right up to you in a way that is at first freaky and off putting. With all the stories we have heard in the US in the last couple of years stingrays don't seem to be docile creatures. You can not help thinking about this as they whip their tales around your legs asking for food. They look menacing and quite frankly scary, but 100 people a day have been swimming withthe stingrays for a few years now, so when in Roam...

A stingray is a blubbery, slimy, ugly creature. They feel like a rotten peach. A rotten six foot peach with two beady eyes set close together and a whip-like tail with a small barb on the end. Four stingrays continued to swim at us from all directions for several minutes. This was very cool.

After this, we paddled further out to Round Cay, where Dave took some pictures and I snorkeled around the outlying reefs. At 6:00 we headed back in towards Grand Turk, fighting a current that was stronger than I expected. I thought we would be going with he wind so the trip would be easier. This was not so. The current kept pulling the kayak to the north. After a few minutes we figured out how to compensate for this and were more or less able to steer a straight course. After 45 minutes we arrived back at South Creek.

Tonight we ate dinner with Alessio and Jackie. We had a wonderful meal of rissoto with snapper and a main dish of pheasant. We spent the evening talking US politics. For the most part I think Dave had to bite his lips. We have just arrived back home. It is midnight.

I think we will go to breakfast in the morning at the Turks Head. This is one of the last places I wanted Dave to see. Then at noon he will leave. It has been a good visit.