Day Five: A Dark Day

We woke up Sunday morning to gale-force winds and clouds just itching to drop torrential rains down upon us. We called the snorkel guides, who told us that that day's tours were cancelled. (Which was a little relieving, because who would want to go swimming in the ocean in the middle of a tropical storm? We decided to wait out the weather, in the hopes of maybe getting some beach time or SOMETHING during the day. (Maybe it was God's way of enforcing sabbath compliance by keeping us from doing anything fun on Sunday.) During the course of the morning and early afternoon, we took naps, watched tv, and peered out the window at the palm leaves blowing off the trees, furniture blowing around in the courtyard, and umbrella trees falling over right by our balcony. The power went off and on... mostly off, so we couldn't even sit out the storm in the hot tub, since being without power for over four hours, it had become a tepid tub. Around lunchtime, we started getting stir crazy and headed into the village to get some lunch and buy our souvenirs. We had... wait for it... fried conch again. I swear, we'd consumed more fried food in three days than we normally do in a month... but hey, we were on vacation! Which means bad diet, no church, and maxed out credit cards... the trifecta of a happy trip.

After lunch we visited the various shops, buying this and that for ourselves and our family and friends. One thing that I was so excited to stumble upon was in a pharmacy. You could buy codeine over-the-counter there, which was tempting until I spotted a product that called out to me with the dulcimer voice of a siren beckoning me to my doom. There on the shelf was a single bottle of a bilous-looking cough syrup of questionable origin. Intrigued, I picked it up to read its contents and was shocked to see that one of the active ingredients was OPIUM! Not some fake narcotic, but real, honest-to-goodness, straight-from-the-poppy opium! I bought some and hoped for the best when it came time to go back through customs. That's always embarrassing to be caught smuggling opium into the States. (Which reminds me of a time coming back from Afganistan where I had to stick a balloon full of.... well, I'll tell that story another time.)

After shopping, it had stopped raining, so we put on our sweaters, coats, and rain jackets and took a walk along the beach. We walked in the water, as it was still way warmer than the air. After about an hour walk, we returned to our hotel room... that had electricity... We really rushed, as we wanted to see the sunset. You can see from this picture that Margaret has several layers of warm weather clothing on.

After the sunset, we promptly went down to the hot tub and spent the rest of the evening in it thawing out from running with wet feet in freezing winds back to the hotel room. Ahh, tropical paradise. We went to bed thinking positive thoughts that the next day would be beautiful, as it was to be our last day and our last chance to go snorkeling. Does the intrepid couple wake to a hurricane? Do they get to ride on the backs of friendly dolphins? Do they get hooked on heroin from drinking all that cough syrup? Tune in tomorrow to find out the startling conclusion of The Real World: Bahamas.