I wrote the following in mid February when I was at Sabal Beach and am now posting it very, very, much later!

I arrived here at Sabal Beach on Monday and the sea was high as Willsey brought us in Jason’s boat but we were able to land at the dock rather than beach the boat (an altogether wetter unloading). Sly, the caretaker, schlepped all my stuff up to the cabana in his wheelbarrow and lugged it up the stairs bless his heart. He looks after me well!

Emilio and Juan Pablo came with us and Emilio made some repairs – including an adjustment to the inline water heater that has made the hot water work as well as it ever has – and were soon done and Willsey took them back on the boat. As soon as they left, the wind picked up and there was a tropical downpour. The wind then veered to an onshore wind from east-northeast and it blew that way until Friday morning, producing waves that smashed into the dock and sprayed spume over it. I am beginning to understand a friend who lives near the Tantramar Marsh in Sackville, NB where the Tantramar Breezes blow briskly. A steady wind can grind on the nerves. We were lucky in Sackville that we had applied wrap-around insulation to our house, top to bottom, held firm with tuck tape before we put the new siding on. As soon as that went around the house, the house felt still and quiet and the winds, broken by the many mature trees around our neighbourhood, did not bother us.

Braving the winds, I have walked along the shore every day, my feet splashing in the waves, and seen the changes brought by the tides since my last visit a year ago. There are inroads in the shore in some places, built up ledges of sand in others. Not to mention all the flotsam that is heaved up on shore: plastic water/soda bottles, plastic motor oil bottles, the occasional soccer ball, plastic flip flops – usually one of a pair. All these things could fly off one of the passing cruise ships (Norwegian Cruise Lines have dredged and built out a huge island, including zip line and dock for the ship about half way between here and Placencia). Other things – 100 ml deodorant containers, disposable razors, used condoms and tampon applicators – are the type of things you throw in your bathroom garbage in your cabin on cruise ship or yacht or sailboat which indicates to me that someone has dumped garbage, somewhere in the ocean to the east of here. Areas where no one occupies the land, these things stay there until the cows come home and clutter the shore. Where someone cares for the shore, it all has to be bagged up, carted out by boat and paid for at the landfill drop off.

Friday night the wind wound down and became a light, westerly off-shore breeze – very cooling as it comes from the mountains you can see in the westerly distance. Lovely for sleeping and pleasant during the day, these are the salad days winds that are soothing. Add to that an overcast sky and the occasional black cloud that seems to avoid Sabal Beach itself and the day stays cool as well and the humidity stays down as it doesn’t when the sun beats on the wet sand. Today, Sunday, the waves are down and I took a morning walk to see if there were manta rays spreading their malevolent looks in the shallows but no luck. The shore sure has changed in the almost week I have been here – one large piece of driftwood has created its own crumbling shoreline behind it after being scoured by the waves. One piece of flotsam, which appeared to be a hard plastic vegetable creel, was well buried in sand yesterday and has floated off with the tide sometime between yesterday and today!

If it stays nice with as little wind as today so far, I look forward to a quiet Belikin Beer on the dock watching what might be a spectacular sunset tonight with enough cloud in the sky to give a colourful display.