The days in the Keys are blissfully the same. We awake at first light as the sun streams through our bedroom window. Initially it is a bit nippy with a touch of wind but the outside soon warms and we head out to the beach for our morning walk. Flocks of birds beat us to the sandbar that has formed in front of our apartment but they pay us and we pay them little mind as we both scamper about. Each day we discover new surprises some large and others quite small. The biggest surprise this year is the lack of garbage washing up on the beach. In prior years we would take two shopping bags with us and fill them before we walked even 100 feet. Now we barely fill a single one for the entirety of our walk.
Another surprise this year is beach glass: there is a lot of it and Juana is having great fun finding it and using it for her art work. We spend a lot of time at the beach but the water chop and chill have made us put off snorkeling and swimming for the time being.
There are many lovely plants about and every house appears to have an orchid or two attached to a tree or fence. I want to smell and touch all the trees and bushes but some, like poisonwood, should never be approached.
I often go biking in the late morning or early afternoon while Juana reads or works on her paintings. We then go back to the beach (trying to match the low tide) to discover newly revealed treasures. The salty and pungent smell of seaweed rot fills our lungs.
After we edit our finds, we wash our feet and sit on the porch swing outside our apartment watching the birds dive for fish, the light play with the waves, and eventually the moon rise from the sea.
