I woke this morning to warm sunlight streaming through the portholes, the smell of fresh coffee, and the soft swaying of the boat tempting me back to sleep. The only thing that could entice me out of this perfect slumber was the sound of my parents softly chatting and laughing in the other room. As soon as I emerged, Daddy shouted “Good morning! Time for cinnamon buns, Paula!”. His priorities are definitely in the right order. We had coffee, cinnamon buns, and eggs while chatting about what we might do today given that there was a chance of rain. It was perfectly sunny though, so we decided to grab the snorkel gear and go down to the lagoon in the marina.

I changed into my bathing suit and came out into the main salon to find a most peculiar activity taking place. My dad was spraying himself head to toe in bug spray… wtf? I thought we were going snorkeling? My mom was putting the beach bag together and asked my dad to spray her back with sunscreen. He, again, grabbed the bug spray and she stood patiently while he sprayed her down completely in bug spray. I now realized that I was witnessing their first steps into senility. I said “is that bug spray?” and about 10 minutes of “TOM!” and gut wrenching laughter ensued before we could gather ourselves to do anything more. Finally, sunscreen was found and applied.

We walked down to the lagoon and snorkeled for about an hour. Not too many fish but lots of coral and some conch! It was a bit choppy but very relaxing to swim around (you barely had to, the salt water did most of the work) in bathtub temperature water and explore. When we were done we took short naps on the beach lounge chairs and then lazily made our way over to the pool to swim and rinse the salt off before returning to the boat.

Mommy made a wonderful lunch of tuna fish with olives, English cheddar cheese, salami and crackers! Everything was so tasty but the hard salami was my favorite (that’s what she said).

We were so tired from our day of luxuriating on the beach and at the pool that we all snuggled up and watched Captain Ron and took little naps.  As soon as we woke it was time to eat again (a real taxing day). Mommy re-heated frozen pot roast that tasted exactly how I remember it from my childhood! She homemade some garlic bread and we ate in the cockpit and laughed our whole way through the meal.

The only way you can top off a perfect day like today is to walk up to the marina ice cream shop, get cones of Bahamian ice cream, and eat them in the lounge chairs on the beach while watching the sunset (featured picture) and listening to your mom tell jokes that start with “A fat redhead, a skinny brunette, and a blonde…”. I don’t know how it can get better than this, but I’m sure tomorrow will be just as wonderful. I never want to leave!