Sails Up, Lets Go!

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, well soon but celebrations began on the weekend with a Girls Only trip to my Sister Sunshines. Mumma Bear and I drove down late Friday evening but whilst I was preparing to leave I took a moment to check out my little red rimmed eyes I'd been cultivating from reading way into the wee hours over the last few nights. My badly lit bathroom mirror betrayed just how tired I was. Oh bad, bad, Bad! So as we said our goodbyes to my little crew, I wondered how I was going to survive, let alone Love and Enjoy and be Good Company on my weekend away with my Girl Fam.

The miserable weather our part of the world has been having of late, followed us all the five hour drive down to the coast. Que, Sera Sera! What Will Be Will Be! If it was going to rain our Awesome Adventuring Saturday Plans away, so be it :D I'll be able to hang with my Sister Sunshine, my seventeen year old gorgeous niece Princess Sparkles and Mumma Bear , and I'm pretty sure we'd be able to while away the time pleasantly doing girls only type stuff. Oh, the joy of potential hubby unsupervised window shopping! What Glee :D So, there is always a bright side.

Eleven thirty pm we arrived and after a few hours of catching up we caught some zzzz's.

At an indecently early time we found ourselves at the dock ready to board our Tall Ship for an adventure. The weather was still doing its best be defiantly terrible. But as you can see we were all pretty happy once we were on board. The crew were a friendly and humorous bunch, right up my alley, I'm guessing sailing to an Island Paradise every day is a pretty good gig. Whilst giving directions on safety the crew indicated that anybody requiring the bathroom, and this they mimicked, could pretty much hang their backsides over the ships rail and take care of business that way. This was met with righteous laughter and guffawing. So funny, I couldn't believe they actually did that!

The sailing was lovely, relaxing and..... wind blown! We had to duck inside a few times to escape the weather. About half way over a crazy man in a speed boat went screaming in front of our ship. I thought, 'Who on earth is this Lunatic?!' . Turns out he was the Speed Boat Operator and after watching a group of people from our ship have an awesome time ripping it up out in the ocean with the Crazy Man, Sister Sunshine and I parted with our cash and hauled our backsides down into that Speed Boat. Crazy, Awesome Fun!!!!! I've been the passenger for a Rally Driver so this smacked of many similarities except the speed boat dude had less restraints, as in things he could possibly run into! Well you would have thought until we saw the mangroves hurtling their way unforgivably towards us, Crazy Man pulled us up at the last moment. Wet and looking a little mad from our adrenalin rush, Sister Sunshine and I climbed back up into the Tall Ship and described the fun to Mumma Bear and pretended we didn't laugh maniacally through out the ordeal.

As we sailed closer to Island Paradise we spotted this.....

Liquor Ship Shop

Say that over a few times quickly! How bizarre is that idea, a boat filled to the hilt with alcohol out on the waterways.

This is the view which our eager eyes feasted on as we approached the shore. Canoeing, jet skiing, four wheel driving, and sand tobogganing were a few activities for us to sample. I was so keen to jet ski, especially because I was bound to be faster than the sharks. Right?

It was really difficult to get a good picture of the Sail Ship. This is about half ten in the morning and you can feel through the photo the ominous weather.

A Cheeky little local obviously accustomed to visitors. He hopped on over to greet us and when we sat down to our buffet lunch he was so game, he even pinched food off our plates! Lucky he was so adorable.

Sand tobogganing was a must for us, even Mumma Bear was prepared to give it a try. We piled into the open trailer attached to the back of a tractor and were towed out to the other side of the island and as we drove the weather became progressively worse until by the time we reached the point of destination the weather was torrential. I figured that we were already soaked so whats a little sand? And climbed the ten meter or so high sand dunes with my Sis and rode that baby down. The wind was so strong that as we climbed, our boogie boards were nearly torn from our hands, and the sand must have blasted a layer of skin off our legs. Whilst the other girls sat daintily on their boards, Sis and I threw ourselves down head first and were rewarded with mega speed and pretty good control. I got a little extra value.... our tour guide admired my freshly acquired sand beard! Oi! How embarrassing :P I told him I'd been working on it for a few days :)

The weather was so bad that there wasn't anywhere dry for Mumma Bear to hide and unfortunately we couldn't get any pics of the sand fun either. Mumma Bear was such a good sport. She was drenched and shivering but she stilled manages to smile.

We look like drowned rats. He he :)

Being drenched isn't too flattering but I had way too much fun to care even a little.

After lunch we really needed some warming up and some shared cocktails helped provide some internal heat and a few giggles. The remainder of the afternoon was full with good music and great conversation.

So in the end, our Big Day of Saturday Fun was a little different to what we had hoped but I more than survived, I Loved and Enjoyed and I think just maybe I was Good Company after all.

And best of all My Sister Sunshine, Mumma Bear and I got to spend a really special time growing closer together.

A Wonderful Birthday Gift!