Alone at Last!

We adore family and friends but it's honeymoon time! We board a plane in New Orleans, land in Atlanta and head to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Lucia. We get to spend the next 5 nights and 6 days in paradise. Now, remember... this is our honeymoon... not going to tell you a whole lot... but there are some highlights that I can share with you...

After breakfast each morning, we grabbed our float, swam up to the pool bar, ordered Pink Ladies and Piña coladas and relaxed! The weather was incredible, the skies were blue, the ocean even more blue. The ocean was "angry" the first few days so we spent most of our time poolside (between naps, of course).

Each night, we got all dressed up and visited a new restaurant. Dressing for dinner is one of my favorite things. We got to enjoy great food and beautiful scenery. The resort was surrounded by the ocean and the sunsets on the water were spectacular. Wow- God is an amazing creator. The water hitting the cliffs, the trees and flowers and sharing all this with the man I love.

One morning, we headed to the Swim shop for Scuba Diving. We signed all the prerequisite paperwork "if you don't make it back from the trip, blah, blah, blah", viewed the required video explaining equipment, safety, check lists, blah, blah, blah and head to the dive pool with our instructor and two classmates. We donned all the equipment, added the necessary weight belts and jumped into the pool. We breathed, we practiced, we purposefully knocked the regulators out of our mouths- ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? and practiced finding them under water. Then we prepared ourselves and headed underwater. We swam and swam and swam in circles and the more I swam, the more I panicked. I'm supposed to do this and do that and oh, by the way, never hold your breath. Excuse me, this instructor has no idea that when I get nervous, I hold my breath. And he's telling me not to? So I calmed myself, surfaced (out of a 4 foot deep pool) and very calmly (I thought) asked how long we would be below the surface on the dive. "30 to 45 minutes" he said. I donned my regulator and headed back down. Two minutes later I surfaced again and squeaked out "I'm not sure I can do this." His words to me were "if you can't be honest with your instructor, I can't help you." I said "I don't want to disappoint him" and I donned my mask and headed back down. One minute later, I resurfaced. I couldn't see because the tears were flowing and fogging up my mask. "It's no use" I said. "I just can't do it." That time, Ben followed me to the surface, took one look at my face and said "it's OK." I tried so hard. I wanted so badly to share the love of diving that he has and I just couldn't do it. I tried to get him to go on the dive without me but my handsome, gallant, wonderful man wouldn't go without me. Again I say, I am a lucky woman!