Monday December 28th

Monday started with coffee and breakfast in the room, along with a meandering walk down the path to the far end of the beach on the resort property.  There is a longer jetty on that end which borders a creek, so D headed out there to play with long exposures while G splashed in the waves.  I grabbed a few lenses and headed out to join them.

The end of the beach, looking back towards the jetty by our condo.

Shot with the edge 80.  This might be my favorite beach pic of G ever.

On the way back to the room, this cattle egret was kind enough to pose for me.  They like to walk on the top of the hedge to hunt for lizards.

With no real plan for the day, we decided to grab an early lunch and look around in a few shops for some beach gear.  We found a little hole-in-the-wall place called Tiki Tacos, which had great reviews and more than a few people had told me about it, so we stopped in there.  I've had some great food on this island, but this is by far one of my most favorite lunches.

The local chickens have no problem walking directly under your seat looking for crumbs.

This is my order... 2 tacos with grilled Mahi, cabbage, salsa, and queso fresco (I go without the crema because sometimes it is made with mayo)  I could barely finish these monsters.  We're coming back to this place for sure.

After lunch, and after a good deal of walking around in shops, G was very happy to get some ice cream!

We made a brief stop back in the room to pack up some beach gear, then drove up the street to Lydgate Park, which promised easy-going protected snorkeling in their "tide pools" (designed to keep the waves out, but some fish in)  I did attempt to snorkel without a vest, however the center of the pond gets deep enough to make me uncomfortable (read: panic) especially with one hand holding the underwater camera, so it was vest time for me.

The largest fish in the pond were these yellowfin surgeonfish, which are easily 2 feet long each.  This school circled around the pond.  A lot of people followed them around (which kicked up sand, making it hard to see) but we found that if we just floated on the surface they would zoom right underneath us.  Often surprising us.  I might have accidentally hit one with my foot at one point.

We saw several other fish, including this stripey guy (called a convict something-or-other, I'll look the name up later) and a puffer fish.

Selfies with snorkel gear are not easy to get.  

Upon getting sufficiently waterlogged, we headed back to the room to clean up and consider dinner options.

I thought I should include an afternoon/evening view from our lanai looking out towards the water.  I love being able to just walk out to the lawn.

This night, we decided to stay on the property and have dinner at Oasis on the Beach.  They still make my favorite Mai Tai on the island, with their special almond flavored syrup that makes it more flavorful without being as sweet as the other places.

Cheers!

My salad is "beets 5 ways".  VERY yummy

D's caprese salad and our shared order of calamari.  This is the ONLY fried calamari I've ever enjoyed, the texture was perfect.

Dinner was grilled ahi served with wing beans and kabocha pumpkin mash.  The beans are sort of a cross between green beans and okra, shaped like X-wing fighters, and the pumpkin is a type of squash very similar in flavor to butternut squash. 

On the path outside our porch we noticed one of the many frogs who hop around the grounds at night.  While this photo is not great, I snapped it anyway to show the relative size of these froggy monsters.  D seems to be creeped out that they "sit up like dogs begging for food".