Grande Anse d'Arlet is a pretty picture perfect sleepy little town and the first thing that we noticed, and are still noticing, is just how quiet it is.

The anchorage is quiet. The town is quiet. In between the gusts of wind, we're straining our ears to faintly hear the roosters crowing, and they do crow, but gee, even THEY crow quietly.

So it was pretty noisy around here when we turned our genny on to charge up the batteries since there hasn't been much sun, and, make some water.



And so, with the genny happily purring away, and in between rain squalls, Dave was hard at work fixing a few lines that have been, with time, getting a tad too frayed,



and I had another job to attack, so out came this,



in an attempt to fix this,



and after a few minutes, I was desperately wishing for a sewing machine as my needle and my fingers were barely strong enough to pull through 3 or 4 layers of material.



I am happy to report it got done, although the purchase of a sewing machine is now higher on my priority list than ever before. The sun and wind and salt spray is doing it's number on our canvas work, and I feel I'm just barely keeping up with all the stitching that is coming undone...

And so after a quick lunch, and despite the rain clouds, and when all the work was done, Dave patiently allowed me to whine,

"Dave, honey..."
"Yes dear..."
"I waannt to gooo for a waa-aalk..."

And what did he say? "But it looks like rain, dear".

So it quickly became a gamble.. Do we sit on our boat and it doesn't rain? Or do we go and it does? Or doesn't. Either way it was a flip of the coin... a 50-50 chance... and what do you do when life hands you a few clouds? Why, you dance of course.

So we dinghied in, deposited our garbage in the large bins just off the main road, and walked along the deserted main street, took a right and followed the signs for the Morne Champagne trail,



where there was quite some impressive leaves in our way,



and the views of the bay quite impressive as we climbed the road that led uphill.



And then the arrow pointed us left, off the road, and onto a very narrow rock and boulder strewn trail, going uphill of course, blanketed with leaves, and within minutes, wouldn't you know, that 50-50 gamble we took? We lost.

We got showered on. Not just sprinkled or misted but downpour, non-stop rain! And as we patiently waited under the canopy of trees we found, it wouldn't let up. It rained and rained and we laughed and laughed. Oh well. It was a warm rain, that actually felt really good. The sounds of nature all around us, the leaves shuddering with the raindrops, quite magical really.

Until we realized that we could very well be standing under a Manchioneel tree..



and the rivulets of rain became gushing streams of water that started to pour along the rocks and so we jumped out of the protection of any harmful acid rain, and once again we made the "prudent" decision to turn around, Le Sigh.

There were alot of these incredible red crabs on the path, and even they were hiding,



and the birds just kind of shuddered it all away.



We got back to the boat and figured since we were totally soaked, we might as well try a swim? Why not?? Until halfway to the rocky shore, we started to feel the stinging ouchies of some very invisible no-see-um jellyfish, until we saw a rather large one glide past us and that was enough to turn us around.

I on the other hand did a ScoobyDoo impersenation and I hoofed it out and ran over the water right back to the boat. Question of, once you know something is lurking and stinging, i'm outta there but fast ! Dave wasn't far behind me either.

Since we had gambled and lost, but had a great day of it despite it all, we made ourselves a feel-good Sunday dinner,



and that's when we wished we had a toy like this for a day like today.



Enjoy and dance in the rain. You might get wet. You might not, but guaranteed, you'll have an adventure and that my dear friends, are memories in the making.

Happy Trails :)