Barbados: Day 5

Wednesday, March 12, 2025: It's funny to me how easily I wake up and go back to sleep through the night here. I typically don't hear rain or even thunderstorms during the night but here, I woke up at 1:11 a.m. when it started raining. Larry had already closed the shutters in the living area so it was easy to close the ones in the bedroom and climb back into bed.

Things are different this morning. The wind feels slightly calmer. The air feels a bit more humid. The birds didn't start coming around until nearly afternoon. There were 4 large birds flying together far out over the ocean. They were circling together while contiuously making their way quickly across the water. There's a couple of fishermen on the cliff and I watched one of them ride his bicycle along the path; a very narrow path that only accommodates one person at a time, on the edge of a cliff, in windy conditions. That doesn't look appealing to me. :-)

Aside from opening and closing all of the shutters as we come and go from the villa each day, we were assigned another task. There has been a man who comes around to each villa to manually turn on the exterior wall sconces on the entire property each afternoon and returns every morning to turn them off. Last night he asked if we could turn them off in the morning and we agreed. He still came around this morning and started to head towards our lights and I told him we already took care of it. He gave me the biggest smile and a thumbs up. :-)

Initially, we both felt that this villa is the closest we've ever been to the water's edge but now that we're settled in, we believe the house we rented in St. Kitts was about the same distance from the water. Our view there was at a point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean Sea with a view of the island, Nevis, directly across from us. Here, in Barbados, we are fully on the Atlantic and it meets the Caribbean Sea just a short distance to the right of this property. The views here are of brilliant blue and turquoise water that seems to go on forever with no obstructions. It's mesmerizing. 

Another similarity to compare with St. Kitts is the shutters. The house we rented was two stories with a second building that had a gigantic bar and kitchen in it. This building was connected to the main house by a covered patio. Every morning, we'd walk down the stairs to the kitchen and open up all of the doors that were on 3 sides of that structure. We'd drink our coffee on the deck at the edge of the water and go back and forth frequently to the kitchen to make breakfast. Each morning, we noticed monkeys in the trees surrounding the property. One afternoon, a monkey hopped on top of the open shutter and was upside down peering inside the window. It was so funny!!! Then, this one morning, we were making breakfast and noticed the monkeys seemed quite close and there were a lot of them all over. They were slowly getting closer and closer to the building so we had to close it all up and wait for them to leave. So, in St. Kitts, we were dealing with monkeys and here we're dealing with birds. 

Today was a very lazy day of reading and watching the waves. Rodney picked us up at 5:20 p.m. to take us to Champers for a dinner reservation Larry made a few weeks ago. I was awestruck as soon as we walked in; it was so beautiful! They walked us to our table and I noticed there was confetti sprinkled on the tablecloth. Then, I saw the menu's with a personal message typed on the cover that read, "Happy birthday to my beautiful wife." I was certain they put us at someone else's table. The hostess picked up the menu and said she'd be right back. Apparently when Larry made the reservation, they asked if we were celebrating a special occasion and he checked, "birthday" without providing any other information. They didn't want to miss this so they assumed he was making the reservation for my birthday. :-) It was very touching that they did this to make our night extra special. With a perfect view of the sunset, planes flying overhead, a starlit sky, and dessert delivered with a sparkler in it; we had a wonderful evening.