The next morning Tessa and Tristan jump in to swim with the big ray that is eating the conch scraps left by Smokey and Lenny the day before.  The ray is so concentrated on the conch that it is startled when Tessa swims down and touches it. Maybe she is getting too comfortable with the wildlife.

We were supposed to leave today, but we can’t hook up to Global star to get a weather report.  We decide to try to get internet at the Batelco office. When Dan asks for internet service, they tell us to come back about 2:00 and maybe the “lady” will let us use her computer.  It is 12:30 now, so we decide to try the grocery store.  We are still out of everything fresh, which is not good as this grocery store has nothing fresh.  The owner doesn’t seem very friendly.  I see cereal on the shelf, but when I ask for milk she says she has none.  No long life milk either.  How do they eat their cereal?  They do have a big selection of evaporated milk.  I read the back label and it says you can use it on cereal.  We will give it a try. (The kids love it!)  We do load up on Applejacks, evaporated milk, Gatorade, Snicker bars, paper towels, and fruit cocktail.  She notices how heavy our bags are and offers to deliver the groceries to the dock for us.  “Will you give us a ride too?”  I ask. No problem. 

She asks a construction guy, sitting in a chair by the door, to drive us back.  Kevin is his name, and he works for the I Group.  He is helping build the new terminal.  I joked with him that it would be a big improvement over the old closet and 4 chairs in the sun terminal that existed now.   He laughed.  He said that the runway was supposed to be done by December, and there would be problems with the government if it wasn’t.  I asked him about the development.  Since the I Group had to give back 5000 acres, they decided to now only build a hotel.  It should be interesting what happens here in the future.  We get the groceries back to the boat and at 2:00 we head back to Batelco to use the internet.

At Batelco we discover there is no place for us to plug in our computer.  If we can’t get our internet, we can’t get weather.  If we can’t get weather, we really don’t want to leave.  Dan tells her we really need to get the weather.  I hear her ask if we are on the sailboat in the harbor.  (It seems everyone in town has come out to see our boat.)  Dan says yes.  There is no place to plug up our computer to the internet, but she leaves her desk and allows Dan to use her own computer.  That was unexpected.  A few minutes later, Dan accesses our email through her machines and has a clear weather forecast for the next few days.  We can leave tomorrow.

The kids and I take one last swim.  We will miss it here.

 I sit outside in the cockpit that night, under an impossibly perfect, round moon.  Beautiful!!  Being all alone in this bay is just a slice of heaven.  The water below us is crystal clear, the sand littered with sand dollars, like beads on the streets after a Mardi Gras parade.

Until you’ve experienced it, you can never know the joy of having a full moon shine through an open hatch, bathing you in moonlight.  Tonight I am perfectly content.  This place is magic.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.