Kids, Ants, and Goats

Fun fact: most of the boutiques and barbershops seen here are bright pink.

The last few days were pretty lazy. We spent most of the time lazing around the boat, reading, and swimming. A lot of the time was spent waiting for yet another fridge repair. The fridge should be renamed "Jem's Headache." The named objects are now Heaven's Door the Catamaran, Hell's Gate the Dinghy, Basil the Plant (I'm not sure if I've mentioned him before, but he's adorable and keeps the mosquitoes away), and Jem's Headache the Fridge.

We spent a couple of evenings going to various restaurant-bars around the bay. One of them had drummers, which entranced some traveling children. This is Ava. She showed me her pink Minnie Mouse bottle.

We've been dealing with an ant infestation on the boat. We found one of the colonies in a hole in the pantry wall, and sprayed insect killer there as well as on a nearby table. The quantity of dead ants that I had to wipe off various surfaces this morning was truly disgusting. This picture is just a small sample of the total amount.

Yesterday we saw some costumed kids and parents driving a dinghy towards our boat and panicked because it was Halloween and we had no candy to distribute. It turns out that they were doing a reverse trick-or-treat, and gave us candy instead! Here they are giving candy to the boat next door, whose inhabitants are a speedo-wearing man and his cat.

We went on a tour of the island today. Both the method of procurement of the tour and the tour itself were slightly sketchy. A local establishment called Lambi Queen (lambi is a type of conch) is both a bar and a boat tour company, so we went yesterday to ask if they gave land tours as well. The bartender said that he knew a guy who'd give us a tour for a good price, but categorically refused to tell us exactly how much "a good price" was, instead reassuring us that he was "a reasonable guy." (It might also be good to mention that one of the beams inside the bar was adorned with a meter-wide flag of Minnesota, which apparently was a gift.) We said that we'd come back at 9am today for the tour, but it was raining so we waited until later, and then of course he had left. Our paths finally crossed again along with a window of clear weather at 2pm, when a man called Vincent pulled up in one of the (now familiar) 15-person taxi vans. Despite the occasional rain, we saw some nice views.

This was a very quirky tour. The 15-person van had so little suspension that despite the road being almost spotless (especially compared to pothole-filled Montreal), with every crack, my spine felt like it was trying to dislocate itself. Speed bumps were traversed at a crawl. I haven't updated my map with the tour route because I had no idea where we were. Items pointed out included a furniture store, some nice cows, the six-road junction (Vincent made sure to specify twice that the name was because it was six roads that met at a junction), and the island's only roundabout. Local animal life included chickens in yards, dogs in streets, cows on grass, and goats literally everywhere. Vincent looked at this herd and laughed, stating that he had twice as many. Well we have four times as many ants, so there.

Tomorrow we go get our covid tests. Absolutely cannot wait to get my fifth nasal penetration to date. They say it's easier if you relax. On that vaguely vulgar note, here's another sunset picture. Goodbye.