Weasels in St.Thomas

 Picture this. We get off the cruise ship in paradise. We catch a total jalopy to bring us across the island to a beach. We are in the van sitting in the back enjoying the sights and Binyam starts nervously asking the driver if everyone in St. Thomas carries guns? Whaaaaa? He told me later he was pretty sure while he was sitting in the front seat with the guy that he could see the form of a gun under his clothes. Binyam thought he had just bought his family a ride in the buggy of doom and that we'd be on 48 hours eventually for this! That never happened. We were delivered safely to the beach on the other side of the island to a whole new dilemma. The beach was thick with Rastafarian's I mean full and they were smoking pot like crazy. The beach was pretty narrow so just behind us all day long we could smell that smell waifing all around and ruining paradise for us. Plus they were like weasels behind us making me so nervous for our camera and things. I usually don't worry about things like that but this was so blatant and obvious Binyam and I ended up taking shifts to protect our stuff. I seriously held my camera in my hands afraid it would be snuck off forever when I wasn't looking. So you would think holding the camera the entire day that I would have a ton of pictures. The weasels  weren't the reason we have no pictures. Sitting there looking at all the beauty I noticed lots of people snorkeling. I had always been leery and afraid of snorkeling and thought may be I should at least try it before I write it off. So I rented a snorkeling mask for $5. I tell you what, that was the best $5 I have spent in my life. Needless to say I loved snorkeling. I burnt to a crisp floating around for hours. I looked up once and realized I was allowing myself to be taken out to sea and found the down side of snorkeling without flippers. I had to fight the current all the way back to the safety of shore. Oh I saw fish that looked like rainbows with fins. So beautiful. Corral that waved at me as I passed by. It was amazing. I came back and told Binyam he had to give it a try and he did. He came back and told Ella she had to give it a try. And she did. She wasn't so into breathing through the tube but managed the mask. Some college kids gave Ella a package of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and and when I crunched up it schools of rainbows with fins flocked to eat out of our hands.  She would dunk under and hundreds of fish were inches from her eyes. If you ask any of us, we feel torn from all other other amazing experiences but Ella will tell you this was her fave. So all in all the weasels didn't steal a thing from us. They managed to be a bit of entertainment, and delivered us safely back to the boat rich in memories!