Wednesday at HHI

On Wednesday I woke up unexpectedly early, so I thought I might as well look for the sunrise. 

And then, since I was up so early, I persuaded Jason to tag along with Grandma and Grandpa on their daily bike ride to the Harbour Town Bakery for coffee and breakfast.

And then we might as well stay for a romantic stroll around the harbor where I fell in love twenty-three years ago.

It’s astonishingly different at 9am than when we’re usually there in the evening and you’d have to kill to get a rocking chair.

We came back to Jeddy manhandling little cousins

and eventually made it to the beach.

a man who knows how to relax

Caleb, blissfully unaware of what lurks beneath

Alas, our pancake friends were back.

Skate in the foreground, whippy tail of a stingray above. The National Aquarium may call them elasmobranchs, but I think water pancake is more descriptive. And a collection of them should be a stack.

Standing ankle deep in the surf, I was peering into the water, and when I saw one I gasped and backed away, only to turn around and see another one just behind me, at which point I jumped and spun so hard I threw out my back a little bit.

stingray’s-eye view

One day we actually saw a pair of gigantic stingrays body-surfing a wave with the very tippy tips of their fingers up, or whatever their side edge is called where fingers should be.

After dinner we returned for golden hour, and enjoyed this much less horrifying specimen of wildlife.

HHI Sat-Tues

Two days after our swimming hole excursion we set off for the beach—a roomy and spacious road trip with only Liz and Caleb in our van; Jed and Maddie rode separately with Ada.

For the third year running, Jason booked me a sunset dinner cruise for Mother’s Day; we took it on Saturday, the first night on arrival at the beach.

 

Jed and Maddie chauffeured us and were on the pier to see us off.

Sunday morning the seven of us gathered in our bedroom and watched the church livestream. Then it was off to enjoy the beach.

That evening Lizzy took me and Jason on a little bird tour-by-bike around the neighborhood. The highlight was a pair of nesting ospreys high in a tree.

Monday morning we got a nice leisurely start, sleeping in and cooking bacon and eggs.

I packed sandwiches and we settled in on our beach chairs.

Within a couple hours we discovered that we were not swimming alone.

stingray, we think

stingray, we think

skate, we think

After semi-panicked debate and extensive research (ie, a 10-second google search), we decided that we were seeing both stingrays (venomous) and skates (not venomous). Although the National Aquarium helpfully describes the differences in their pelvic fin lobes, the only way I could tell them apart was size (what we decided were skates were large-dinner-plate-sized; stingrays were like I-wouldn’t-be-able-to-get-my-arms-all-the-way-around-it-sized, not that I wanted to or tried it) and tail (skate tails are fleshy; stingray tails are whippy).

My first reaction to seeing skates was terror…until I started seeing the much larger and potentially dangerous stingrays, after which skates weren’t nearly as scary.

Nor were water pancakes the only wildlife, or the most unusual. Never before in my life have I seen:

armadillos. This was actually a litter (?) of four baby ones, living under a house, like stray cats do in normal places.

Did you know that a group of armadillos is called a roll? And a group of stingrays is called a fever. A group of skates, however, is merely a school.

Further facts that I just looked up: armadillo babies are called pups (officially) or armadiglets (unofficially but way more cutely), and there are always exactly four identical babies in a litter. You’re welcome.

After surviving our wildlife encounters unscathed and unstung, our family biked to the beach club for a lovely dinner. And the next morning we biked aaalllllll the way to South Beach to buy some Salty Dog swag, as one does.

Maddie was most delighted to come home with her new best friend, Potato the manatee.

yet another bike ride around the neighborhood after dinner

We enjoyed golden hour on the beach, as well as another visit with the armadiglets along the path back to our house.