PARADISE FOUND & BRIEFLY LOST.........

This is the PARADISE we have been looking for. This is even more beautiful than you can imagine, even if you double-click on it and we send it to you for a 'screensaver'. (email us) This is way more beautiful than that. This is all before the cold front hit us. This is when we went ashore to explore the island.



These cays are low sedimentary beds of calciferous limestone mixed with shell and sand, but razor sharp away from the beaches. Vegetation is sparse but hardy, and seems to survive only where it can get a foot-hold in a crevice. We spotted birds and some kind of furry animal in the bushes. We brought shoes but Captain Global Glenn Miller did not. Improvisation is the key to island survival, hence Glenn's "seaweed sandals"....................



As we crossed the island barely six feet above sea-level we found a multitude of sink holes within the limestone and all with standing water in them. No way you can walk across this stuff without shoes. Surface pockets must retain enough rainfall to allow the palmetto palms and bushes to survive, for there is no soil to speak of.....
Many piece of the limestone had exfoliated and walking on these flat slivers gave a metallic resonance, such is their hardness............... Different size, a different sound. A bit like walking to a tune, for if you took a step back the same sound would repeat itself. A limestone xylophone........... on a grand scale, and the whole island to ourselves. We could play the music as loud as we wanted................. and in doing so we discovered the original "rock" band. How about that...... A rock band played with seaweed sandals...... in 'D' minor.



Plants fighting for survival in a sandpit on a salt-laden shore.



AND IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER THIS THAT THE THREE-DAY COLD-FRONT CAME THROUGH.