Feeling a Little "Batty"

Sunday afternoon, after our adult lesson, Pam and her husband installed air-conditioning in our house. It felt so nice!!! We decided to leave it on at night so that the rest of the house cooled down as well, but I ended up being pretty cold during the night. I don’t think I’ve ever slept with the blanket over my head before! We’ve decided to only turn the AC on every once in a while because we are pretty cold when we come back from lessons at 5pm and having cold air blowing is unbearable! I never thought I’d be saying how cold I was in the Bahamas!

Monday’s lessons started off really well! We have an entirely new set of faces to teach this week. I love starting new lessons because you can see how quickly the swimmers progress. It’s so exciting!

We had almost all of our lessons show up- and arrive on time! It was so nice for a change! In addition to the lessons, Ana and I had a chance to walk around town and scope out the ice-cream store, ‘Ida’s Delights’. We hadn’t had icecream since before we left home. I miss it! We ended up each getting a pineapple-coconut fruit bar and a pint of strawberries and cream to bring back home. I’m not sure if tasted amazing because it was, or if it’s because we haven’t had it in a while! It was a perfect way to end the day.

I woke up Tuesday morning to rain and thunder. Ana and I hoped it would pass by quickly so we could start lessons in the morning, but it was cold and the rain persisted. When the rain finally did let up, we made our way over to the gift store to get some postcards and then to Thompson’s grocery for some apples. The rest of the day was spent reading and taking naps. It sounds boring, but we definitely needed a down day where we had to do nothing. We did a little bit of cleaning and yoga in the kitchen, so the day wasn’t a total waste of time.

This morning, I woke up to more rain and thunder. Although it was nice to have a day to lounge about, I was anxious to continue on with lessons. It rained pretty steadily until half an hour before our first lesson and then stopped. We decided to make our way down to Long Bight to see if our lessons would show up. It was cold (I have no idea what cold is anymore… probably 70F; It’s been so warm here that that seems cold!) and the water was ridiculously choppy. We waited around for a while, but no one came. We figured we’d go exploring for a while and come back for our afternoon lessons.

Ana and I decided to make the trek to the Hatchet Bay Caves. It’s probably a four or five mile walk which seemed tolerable with the mild temperatures. On our stroll, we had several cars stop to ask us if we needed a ride. People look at us like we’re crazy when we say we’re going for a walk! Where were all of these cars when we were hitchhiking to Wemyss Bight? Anyways…We were maybe a mile away from the caves when a man in a truck offered to give us a ride. Not knowing how much further we really had to go, we hopped in. He was worried we were going to have a hard time walking the rest of the way because the road gets a little narrower and there’s not a lot of grass to walk in. His ride was greatly appreciated!

So, the caves…We found what appeared to be the entrance and walked inside to find neon spray-painted messages on the rock.

Walking a little further though, we heard bats- lots of bats. I was nervous at first, but they were so cute! When we tried to walk a little further into the cave, I walked under them and braced myself for a potentially traumatizing encounter, but am happy to report that no such calamity occurred! We decided not to venture too far into the cave since our two flashlights weren’t bright enough to really see where we were going, or what was flying at us.

Walking back to Gregory Town, a small red car pulled over. It was the same man who had given us a ride before! He said it must be our lucky day. I think he was right. The sun had started to come out and it had gotten pretty humid which didn’t make walking too pleasant. We made it back in time for our afternoon lessons. Truthfully, I feel like today was the best day of lessons yet even though we were not able to have our first two this morning. We taught two sisters, a group of four, and then a mother-daughter adult lesson. Eight people in three hours- Not too bad! The mother-daughter lesson was a lot of fun. The daughter who is sixteen has come to a few lessons, but her mother had wanted to learn too. It’s amazing how much they can learn in an hour. They were hilarious to be with!

Phew! That was a long post! I should make sure I keep on top of this blog so I don’t have to write epic entries after missing a few days!

Hope for sunshine!