Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Further Every Day


Each Beachwalk is unique...
We may walk this beach a thousand times...
But no two will be the same!

Today is the day.  I'm not playing anymore.  I'm going to go out there and walk with purpose, not letting sea treasures distract me from my goal.  I'm going to make it to that washed up tank that marks the half mile on our beach!  

But wait!  TURTLE TRACKS!!!

With my broken foot keeping me off the beach, we've missed all of Leatherback season.  I did get a call some weeks ago from my Turtle Master, asking if I had marked the nests on our beach.  So I know that we had some...  But today, we found two, and possibly one aborted mission, by what must be the Hawksbill Turtles that also nest here. 

These must be from last night!
 

This shows the entrance and the exit.

I'm super excited about this!  Finally I made it far enough down the beach to reach the turtle nesting areas!  We haven't been trained yet, but I did notify our Turtle Guru about these, so I still feel like I'm a part of something awesome!

This leads to a second nest that is far up into the palm forest. 

Success!  I reached the half mile mark!  This is just the beginning!

After reaching my goal for the day, we took a little side trip into the palm forest.  There is a wide path that leads eventually to the road out in front of our condos, but we didn't go very far today.  

Once you get past the giant coconut husk pile, the palm forest is a magical place.  It's more quiet than the beach, with the sound of the roaring waves fading into the distance. Birds call across the canopy, and lizards rustle the undergrowth.  There are a few little flowers trying to survive in the shade amongst the decaying parts of fallen trees. 







I'm so happy to be able to make it this far down the beach again.  We've truly missed exploring our beach all these months.  But... my stamina is so low that at this point, I feel like I'm beginning to circle the drain.  We turned back toward home with a few stops along the way to rest and pick up sea glass (of course)

We found this fishing float washed up into the forest high water mark.  It comes home with us!

Whew!  Finally made it back to our beach path where we settled on the palm trunks that line our walkway.  We empty our pockets to see what we've collected for the day.  Not a bad haul...

But while we paused to catch our breath, count our loot and generally enjoy the beautiful, balmy Caribbean breeze on our hot faces... 

Just behind us, the neighbor crabs come out to see what's going on!



This little guy couldn't seem to decide if we were a threat or not!  He hesitated near his hole, then he cautiously wandered off around  behind a tree... then seemed surprised to see me when he came around the other side!  Tiny brains!

You can see him coming around the tree where he was surprised to see I was still there!

The coloring on his back is beautiful!

Yes, we have so little to do in our lives, that sitting on a fallen palm, making friends with the local crabs is a large part of our day!  But, every time we go out to the beach, I'm feeling a little more energized.  I feel the difference in my strength and stamina with each passing day.  And we have all of these things to entertain us on the way!

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