Day 6

El Diablo.  From our bungalow deck there is a ladder that goes about 3 feet down into the water that you can climb on to get in and out of the water. Around this ladder lives a little black fish that guards the ladder viciously.  He patrols the ladder all day long and if he catches you lingering he gives your ankle the kiss of death. Okay, that’s extreme, but he got it Melissa first and I thought she was a little dramatic when she screamed. However, the next time I went down the ladder and lingered too long (about 3 seconds) I became his next victim.  We both have a circular cut in the perfect shape of his mouth that was sort of numb at first, but stung after a few minutes.  So here I am a grown man paranoid and practically running up this ladder every time I have to get out of the water. 

And then there are scooters.  We’ve heard the horror stories, newly weds/vacationers going on trips to tropical places, renting scooters against their better judgment only to have some type of inexperienced-operator-error accident. Since neither Melissa nor I own a two-wheeled vehicle of any kind except for a bicycle, we decided to go against our better judgment and rent a scooter anyway.  It’s been fun riding around all day taking in all the island has to offer. Of course we go all day with no problems and then the evening comes. We drive about 35 minutes to the other side of the island for dinner. We’ve gone all day without seeing nary a dog and with nightfall we have a stray dog chasing after us every 5 minutes, which causes us to quickly lift our legs and swerve the scooter every time they get too close for fear they might bite us.   Or even better we have to watch out for crabs with a death wish as they cross the road camouflaged in the dark.   With every little crunch we can’t help but think, what a perfectly good waste of crabmeat.  Don’t worry; we’ve actually managed to avoid hitting them, but one of these days….