November 16, 2005

Hi everybody!  Well we’ve had a definite change in seasons down here.  It is no longer stinking hot and the wind tends to blow quite a bit now.  The water temperature has cooled considerably and it is now quite chilly spending an afternoon on the water.  It’s really quite amazing thinking about how hot I was just last month.

Well, it’s almost midnight and I can’t sleep.  The wind is blowing so hard outside!  I have to say, I think you came at just the right time.  Ever since you left the weather has been MUCH cooler and the wind has blown constantly for the last 4 days.  We did our overnight excursion on Saturday night. It wasn’t really quite what I had expected.  I had to do standby for the flight and wait at the airport for five hours.  But, I used that time to wander around north of the airport, sleep in some nice warm mud and check out a quarry that I never knew existed.  I got to Grand Turk, immediately ordered two Pina coladas and relaxed.  It was so nice to have a break from the routine here and the weather seemed perfect.  We took a couple of 24’ skiffs like the one we have here to a nearby island- Salt Cay.  Salt Cay is actually quite similar to South Caicos- it has a huge salina down its middle and on main street lining the ocean.  However, there were a bunch of old white people there- some of them visiting, some of them residents- so that was a bit different.  We were rained on pretty much the whole ride to Salt Cay.  We laughed and said it was probably the cleanest we’d been in awhile.  It stopped raining just long enough for us to put up our new tents, then it started pouring (I mean seconds after we had finished putting up the rainfly).  Then, it proceeded to downright tropical storm on us, all night (That was the beginning of the major wind that has been blowing for four days).  It got dark and then I went over to another tent and watched 14 people get drunk in a 4-person tent.  Awesome!   We had a really nice dinner at a rather quaint little restaurant and then there was a party with a bunch of residents (but these residents are all dive instructors and boat operators, ~30-45 years old, and mostly American so you can imagine how that would have changed the scene a bit from the ”normal” one here).  It was really a fun evening.  Our entertainment, a comedian man dressed up in high heels, a green sequin dress and a pink wig and glasses named Bubbles came out and gave us some good limericks but then a local came in and wanted to fight him/her so Bubble had to leave.  I called it an early evening since I was kind of drunk and the scene was getting to be too crowded.  I got home, brushed my teeth and stepped into the tent just in time for another hurricane-gale wind and rain and then I didn’t leave the tent for the rest of the night.  It was a really intense storm with lightning and pelting rain. I was so glad that we had a new tent that was 100% waterproof.  The next day, because of the storm, we had to leave early and take a much bigger boat back to Grand Turk.  The waves were HUGE and everyone was crowded at the front of the boat (I am talking boat like one of the smaller ones we saw in Provo) and the water kept sloshing up over the cabin of the boat and pouring onto the people in the back.  That ride was great!  It was like a free adventure.  Such amazing sea!  I wore all of my rain gear and was the only person on the boat who wasn’t sopping wet.  We got back to Grand Turk and received a ride to the airport from a man named Frank.  He managed to fit (well, more or less) 14 people’s bags and 9 people into his pickup.  Amazing!  We had a bit of time to kill at the airport and I have a picture of all of the students passed out on the ground outside the airport.  I guess they hadn’t slept well either.  Got back, went to bed early, slept a long sleep and I still feel pretty good from the trip.  Especially since it was free.  

But I am also feeling a bit sad.  I went for another run today because I think it helps me clear my head. There was a chance that our big hike next week would be cancelled but I think it is going to be happening again. I REALLY want to go on that trip and I have my fingers crossed. I have been looking forward to it since april I think. Man, it is so blustery out!  The water is choppy in the harbor!  Well, I guess that’s my news that I can share for now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brooke