We tootled out into the middle of Hurricane Hole and cut the motor. The hole was nearly perfectly round and pelicans sat on trees all around it. Both of us put on our snorkels and jumped off into water that was probably ten feet deep. It was very cloudy with silt, however, and so we decided to get back into the boat and continue tootling. Unfortunately, our bodies can no longer always do what our minds can imagine, and hauling our asses back into the Avon from water over our heads turned out to be an impossible (but comical) challenge. So, we grabbed the ropes and hauled the boat over to the nearest beach where we could stand up.

The strange, spiral, rock-strewn beach that surrounds Hurricane Hole is secluded and rarely visited by any of the tourists or natives. The area is part of the National Park and is a designated nature preserve. We walked along it for hours, combing through the bleached coral and various other objects on the beach. We found dozens of discarded shoes, flip-flops, sandals, aqua shoes, tennis shoes, all kinds of shoes, but only one of the pair, usually the left one for some reason.

We walked along one-shoe beach all the way around to the point where it meets the reef that protects the whole South Sound. There we found a most amazing place. A little cave in the rocks where the full ocean surf regularly blasts across reef and spews white foam twenty or thirty feet in the air. We sat in the cave for a long time, enjoying the shade and the occasional sea shower, and watching the tidal pools.

After walking back over one-shoe beach to retrieve the boat, we managed to re-start the motor and tootled all around the bay. The emerald green water is prettiest over the sandy bottom at the center of the bay, and the breeze felt fantastic after walking in the sun for so long. We were completely exhausted when we landed the boat back at the beach and had to drag it up to the tree to chain it down again. Kathy suggested the old, 1-2-3 heave!, approach, which seemed to work well enough.

Back at the Pink House, we showered in the outdoor shower and sat in the sun for a while to dry. While lounging on the porch, wearing nothing but beach towels, we heard Dennis the Granadian Gardener grumbling in the flower beds out front again. Kinda scary that the sound of the wind drowns out everything else, so that we never heard him driving up on the dirt road. But we dressed and went out to talk to him a bit. He grumbled, "You might as well leave that last gate open. The cows have discovered another way into the yard it seems!" They didn't seem all that cunning to us, but Dennis watched them warily while replanting his aloe plants.

I mentioned the wind. The trade winds blow constantly here out of the southwest. Usually, it's just a gentle breeze that smells like the open ocean. But sometimes, usually at night around 3am for some reason, it turns into a gale, shaking the whole Pink House and blowing through the jalousie windows like a jet engine. The temperature varies from a high of about 82F to a low of about 80F at night. In other words, it's pretty much constant. But the wind! It's impossible to stand in that breeze for more than a few minutes at any time of the day or night and not be tempted to take a nap. And so, that's what we did on the afternoon of the sixth day...

That night we dressed for dinner and went out to Pusser's Lighthouse Restaurant at Leverick Bay. I had blackened Red Snapper and Kathy had grilled Mahi. Her's was the best. We drank Carib beer and had Lime Coconut Cake for dessert. The coolest thing about the restaurant, and this is something we've noticed at other resorts too, is to watch the people tootle in for dinner from their yachts anchored offshore. We saw a whole family of blond, tan people sit down for dinner and then, later, discovered their yacht at the marina. We knew it what theirs because of the bikinis of all shapes and sizes hanging on the rigging to dry.