Amy and I heard chanting coming from the bedroom where we thought Sarah was already asleep. It took some time to parse the words because they seemed so inconceivable. Sarah was chanting, along with a family in a YouTube video, “Blood draw! Blood draw! Blood draw!” Yup, our little lover of crying babies and hospitals had found something she loved even more than a baby wailing because of birthday candles being blown out (de-lightful). Amy and I cracked up.
The chanting moment followed a long and wonderful day on a sailboat. We snorkeled among turtles, sat in the sun on the front of the boat, and ate at a floating taco restaurant where small fish swarmed around your legs if you dropped a bit of food in the water accidentally on purpose. When Sarah dropped a morsel, a fish nearly leaped into her lap. Amy and Carl swam to the restaurant while Sarah and I accepted a ride in a dinghy. Amy and Carl also did the Pisces Plunge, jumping 12 feet into the water from the top of the boat. I watched. Sarah did snorkel that day but had some trouble with getting water in her mask so didn’t want to snorkel as much as Amy did, but she still had a great time. Sarah loved to say she was “little green Tick Tock basking in the sun” which is a reference to the book What Color Should I Be? about a little green chameleon basking in the sun.
Our whole week in St. Thomas was absolutely amazing. On our first night there I stood in the shallow water while Amy swam, and I noticed a what I thought was a tire in my peripheral vision. It was a huge ray followed closely by a baby ray! They swam right past me. That night Amy made friends with a black cat who wanders around the resort area, along with many other cats, all of whom received names from Amy. The first black cat was dubbed Ray. Ray even sat on Amy’s lap! Amy adored all of the cats, and we all enjoyed seeing the tiny lizards that abound. One night we saw a shell moving towards us on the sidewalk, so of course we named it Marcel, although I don’t know where his shoes were. (If you haven’t yet, go watch Marcel The Shell With Shoes On). I had a beach sighting of an iguana, and we all endured many close-up hellos from the mosquitoes in our room. Carl took out 30 mosquitoes on our first night. Perhaps the mosquito whine we heard by our ears was them chanting “blood draw!” The most magical experience, though, was seeing the sea turtles swim right past us on their way to get a breath of air.
We suffered through many virgin pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, and mango sunsets. It is probably for the best that our trip is over now so we’re cut off. We left yesterday and felt lucky that our plane arrived since it was stuck in New York for many hours due to weather. Last night we got to our rental house a little after 1:00AM. This week we get to celebrate Christmas again with two sets of family in Philly – once everyone wakes up! Despite our late arrival, Sarah had some trouble falling asleep, so it was almost 3:00AM before she stopped calling out for me. Everyone but me is still asleep, perhaps dreaming of snorkeling, a multitude of cats, or a blood draw with a crying baby. Whatever floats your boat.
May you have pleasant dreams and magical moments.
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