I am sitting here, sucking on my fire stick, trying to gather my thoughts to start the second part of my trip report. It is hard to get motivated when the landscape you are now in is brown, hot, and drying up. Actually, Texas must be having a cool front moving through, as the high today is only supposed to get to 100. The trees are still green but the grasses have died long before, and area lakes and ponds are evaporating rapidly as I speak. You know how hot and dry it is when your outside cats and dogs lay around the sprinklers, just to stay cool. Okay, I will shut up and get started on part two of my trip report. I promised you it is more positive than the first, though it did start out rough again!

When we arrived on STJ on the 6th, George for some dumb reason took a right out of the car ferry parking lot. I told him to take a left and then a right. He discovered his error shortly, and turned us around and headed in the general direction of Cruz Bay. I say general because we managed to drive on every street surrounding Cruz Bay without actually getting there for what seemed like an hour. Again, we failed to get any directions to our condo at Coconut Coast Villas because we had a map and thought we could follow it. Hah! Now let me tell you once again how blonde I am. On the map, it showed Coconut Coast Studio on Frank Bay. I directed George there once we found Cruz Bay, because, like hey, we were staying at a studio condo at a place called Coconut Coast! We wound up at a nice little house in front of the bay wondering where the condos where. A dear kind lady named Linda Estern, a local artist, didn't even laugh at us as she gently told us that Coconut Coast Studios was her home and art gallery, and that Coconut Coast Villas was where we should be headed on Turner Bay! We petted her old brown lab dog and headed off, with new directions, and a promise to ourselves that we would come back and buy some of her art. George missed a turn she told us about, and the next thing I knew was that our nice grey Ford Taurus was headed down the steepest hill that I have ever seen! And it was in a residential area!!!! I yelled all the way down, while stomping my 'chicken' brakes and pushing up against the roof of the car, just knowing that our car would start flipping end over end or, at the very least, slide all the way down. George had a death grip on the steering wheel and mumbled prayers and curse words as we shot down the hill. Have you ever seen one of those stress dolls that bosses love to give to their employees that when you squeeze them really hard their eyes pop out?? George looked just like that! The visuals of it still haunt me to this day. At the bottom of the hill, we luckily turned right and finally found ourselves in front of Coconut Coast Villas!! Since it was a Sunday, the manager had left an envelope with our key in it at the office door. Later, her mom, who was helping out, said she felt so sorry for us after she heard all the messages I had left on their office phone while we were lost. I understand how she feels because the messages started off with, " Hi! This is Sharon and George and we have arrived at the car ferry dock on STJ and we will be arriving on time." and ended with, " This is Sharon again! We are lost and need directions!! Where are we?? Hallllppppp!!!!!!!!!!! "in a high-pitched and pathetic, but definitely, a southern rogue-type of voice. I shudder to think about it now. Anyway, we found our nice little condo, and were quite pleased with it and the large balcony it had. As I have said before, we are simple folk and don't need much, but the condo was everything we needed and more. Our only problem at first was the fact the A/C was not on when we entered, and with this fat sow being a 'lunger' also, I could barely stand it until we had the room cooled off. Don't think you don't need A/C if you are on the coast, because you will suffer without it!! Maybe it is cool and breezy enough up in the hills, but certainly not below. Luckily for me, I walked out onto the balcony to discover we were at the ocean's edge, and there was a nice breeze blowing through. Looking below to the rocky beach made me want to start off my snorkeling right away. The water is not real clear in this bay, probably due to the car ferry that cuts through on the way to the landing. Yeah, the car ferry dock is not more than a couple of stone throws away from our condo. Imagine that. Anyhoo, I convinced good ole' George into donning his swim trunks and grabbing the snorkeling bag and headed off. Did I tell you that I am super clumsy? I slipped almost immediately on the rocks but fortunately did not hurt anything but my ego. We snorkeled around a bit but it was really too hazy to see much except a thriving colony of black sea urchins. We decided to head to shore and while I was still snorkeling in shallow water, I noticed George getting pushed over by a wave as he struggled to stand up and walk onto the beach. I also noticed his hand came mere inches from a black sea urchin and I started screaming into my dry snorkel, scaring George even more as he struggled to get up. He then stepped right on one with his right fin. I popped up out of the water but George was not moaning, so I knew his fin had deflected the spines. Both of us couldn't get out of the water fast enough! We showered and went to Dolphin Market for groceries, not knowing yet that Starfish was close by. We both had sticker shock though everyone had warned me here about the prices. I highly recommend bringing any non-perishables you can. I'm certainly glad I did. It will save you mucho deneros! We later found Starfish Market and was glad to see they had a much wider selection. I noticed pineapples were $8.99/lb, some pitiful looking T-Bone steaks were $10.95/lb., and some tiny cantaloupes were also $8.99/lb. Do not go expecting to find the same quality of produce or meats like you would find at home. It is understandable though, with everything having to be shipped in, but my socially conscious mind kept wondering how do the poor locals afford to eat? We were fortunate that the water at our condo was on city water and was safe and not too unpleasant to drink. I had saved empty water bottles at home for our trip, so I just filled them up and put them in the fridge to cool. I must say that those boxes of individual serving packets made by Crystal Lite and Lipton tea was nice to have that I brought over. Now that we were set so far as food was concerned, we spent the rest of our first day on STJ just chilling on the balcony and enjoying the view. Being too tired to go anywhere for dinner, we settled for making sandwiches and drinking beer and Bloody Maria's. MMMM! We had finally arrived and settled in paradise!

I will try and get to part three of my trip report soon, and hope everyone enjoyed this one. I will let you know in advance that the ice-chest float thingie did not work, as the ice-chest was too big for the float. Sorry to disappoint!

Sharon