Kate’s Winter Vacation

On our first night, we went out on the Firefly River tour. This involves a ride in a smallish banca -- really just an outrigger canoe -- along the black-sand beach as the sun is setting, then up the local river among the mangroves to an area where the bushes and trees lining the river show occasional sparkles of fireflies. Hmm. nice. okay... but then wow! as it darkened still further, we came to several trees that were lit up with hundreds of fireflies each! With the stars brilliantly clear above, it was magnificent. We admired the firefly trees for some time, then started back, Kate still muttering a bit about how many Camp Ouareau boating rules we were breaking. No lifejackets... out at night ... no light ... there's lightning in the sky .. don't know our way ... Well, the boatman did, which was the essential thing. I was admiring the bioluminescence in our wake and Kate was dozing off when a flying fish flew right into the boat, bouncing off her vital parts and flopping around in the bottom of the boat among our feet and calves. Don't know how many years it took off Kate's heart health, but both of us hoisted our legs up to about our chins and kept our feet as close to the gunwales as we could for the rest of the journey. When we got a look at it in the boatman's torch (he did too have a light!) before disembarking, it was really just a small fish.