Maybe, Maybe Not . . .

The angelbaby tried out her new boogie board yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico. I only let her get in with me right next to her and I was thigh deep in the water, so she really wasn't in much danger of getting caught in a riptide or having anything else hazardous happen (or so we thought, but more on that in a bit).

She was only about 30% successful at catching waves with her board. As the time progressed, she got a bit more skilled at choosing which waves would be good ones to try for, and how to set her board on the crest of the wave. All in all she had some really sweet rides.

We got out to reapply sunscreen and take a break, and while we were out of the water a young man and his dad who were body surfing right near where we were caught sight of a shark just below where they were swimming. Having seen the movie Jaws, I decided that we were done swimming for the day. The angelbaby, who hadn't seen the movie, wondered why I was so concerned about being that near a shark. She had seen a shark before at the zoo. I reminded her that in that case there was a large pane of plate glass between her and the shark.

I still have nightmares about seeing Jaws when I was 15 and living in Hawaii, and then snorkeling off the beach at Makaha and running into a hammerhead shark in the wild with nothing between us but a few hundred yards of ocean. It was the most frightening experience of my young life and one I don't want to re-experience, thank you very much.

Anyway, we came back to the suite, which was probably a good thing, because two of the girls got a bit too much sun. We ended up with the bonus of getting back before mrangelmeg had left for work for the evening (we had originally thought we would stay at the beach long after he had to go to work) so that was a nice plus.

We are still feeling our way down here, and will probably not go to the beach today to give the burned skin a day of rest. I am still trying to get used to the slower pace. Not much is expected of me besides knowing where the angelbaby is when she is in the water (whether it is in one of the pools or the ocean) or trying to determine what the two older girls needs are, and they aren't very demanding. Even keeping the suite clean isn't all that hard, although because we didn't bring all that many clothes I seem to be doing just as much laundry down here as I did back home.

Life is funny like that.

Pax