It is an earlier morning than usual for us, only because there is a commotion on the balcony and something tapping and making tons of noise around 5:45a.  Ed thinks its me making noises!  Um, no – turns out it’s a bird on the balcony. A big White-Tailed Tropicbird, that looks like it might be hurt maybe, its wings?  We don’t know, it’s hopping around, sort of flapping its wings, trying to fly up to the balcony rail, but it can’t.  Then it comes over to the window and starts pecking and tapping on it.  Poor baby.  We don’t know who to call, and as it is so early, we figure we’ll wait to see if it is just stunned and will be able to fly away soon.

So, off to coffee and the gym we go, then back to the room where the bird has indeed flown the coop, so to speak.  But its left us a present…..a squid is on the balcony (along with tons of bird poop, I might add)!  Ok, in all our cruising this has never ever happened before.  It is just too funny/weird/amazing.  Don’t really know the right word.  And we feel so bad, but we have to ask our cabin attendant to clean it up – coz who else do we call?  We leave sweet Tess a note – then it is off to the tender we go…..or at least to the Den to wait for our tickets.

Rafael had told us to get to the Den early, and oh boy was he right! It is an out and out scrum.  There’s no line, no coordination, just guest milling around. Those of us who were early get pushed, and I mean literally pushed, out of the way by others who just walked in an bullied their way to the front of the crush of people in front of the little desk where Wresly hands out tickets.  People are pressed so tightly up against me, if I fainted, I wouldn’t hit the ground. It’s just, well, ugly! 

Luckily we get tickets and make it on the 2^nd tender.  It takes forever for us to be called though because the currents are so strong, the tender is bobbing up and down like a cork.  The loading process is so slow, then the ride over is slow, again due to the currents.  Finally ashore, we find a sweet little girl with a Nedy’s bike sign who leads us down the soft sandy streets to our pre-reserved bikes. 

And we are off!  Out to the north end of the island, past the huge Tortoise on the road, appropriately at the “Slow Down Tortoise Crossing” sign, and on past little beach bars, gorgeous white sandy beaches and these huge boulders that look almost prehistoric.  Like Jurassic Park.  I expected a huge dinosaur to pop up from behind them spitting fire at us. Just gorgeous.

Reaching the end of the road near Anse Caiman, there is a sign for the beach bar there, a further 20 to 25 minutes walk – or we should say scramble over the rocky terrain along the shoreline.  Nope.  If we were here all day, maybe.  But we have limited time and want to cover more of the island.  So after pictures of the amazing landscape…

…we head back toward town, stopping here and there for more gorgeous scenery along the coastal road we are following.  The rocks, the craggy cliffs along the shore, the Ghost Trees.  Just stunning.

Feeling thirsty, we stop at an all but empty little beach bar called Takamaka (the name of the local rum) and relax under the shade trees while sipping on an exceptionally good local beer, SeyBrew.  And you know it must be good if I am having one too!

Closer in to town, we make another stop at the gorgeous cemetery nestled at the foot of the gently sweeping mountain slopes.  The vibrant flowers (plastic, but still) make for a beautiful if not poignant contrast against the black and white gravestones.  The grave for “Dad” with the rum and shot glass is so sweet.

On around the island we go – passing through a now very busy little town, out around the southern side of the shore, turning inland at the park where the road ends (we didn’t want to walk down to some other bars we had read about) and heading into the interior of the island where trees draped the road and houses and guest cottages lined the roads.  We had wanted to go to the other side of the island, to Grande Anse, but that entailed going up over the mountain, and at this point in the day, we weren’t up for that.  Plus, we don’t have enough time now. 

Passing a chapel or shrine, who knows? We stop for moment for some snapshots, then head back to town to return our bikes and hop on the tender to the ship, past more gorgeous rock formations in the harbor.  Weirdly timed morning excursion complete.