There is a bad side to social media and also a good side. This trip has been enhanced due to the positive connections we’ve made through social media and the internet.
I did my early morning cloud viewing, followed by a breakfast of french toast sticks topped with dilly, papaya, and star fruit. A plating competition may have ensued.
We planned out the day, hoping that with the wind shift, we might have had a chance at snorkeling at Poseidon, but it was still to rough for safe snorkeling.
Our next destination was a tip given to us on our 2nd or 3rd day here by our host. Connecting with her has been a wonderful experience and let us see things we would haven’t know about. We returned to our favorite snorkel spot, the seas were even rougher over here, but in we went, first doing the 1/4 mile beach walk to the far spot and then the walk back to the closer reef.
The rain clouds were moving in, we decided to not have lunch here and go for a covered spot to lunch. We drove the short distance to Busted Bridge. We knew they weren’t open but had a covered spot we could sit under to lunch. We attempted that until the no seeums were so bad they drove us away.
We meandered home on the one main road,enjoying the views as we went.
Once back at the base camp, we unloaded and were about ready to settle down for our afternoon Kalik and water viewing session, when a message appeared to meet someone at Dean’s Blue Hole.
Who is this someone? A woman who instagrammed that she was a home brewer living here on the island. I struck up a conversation and asked our local home breweries if they had any hops we could bring to her. Assistant Brewer Justin from Firefly Hollow hooked us up. Mel from MelsBells Brewing asked us to join her and her family at Dean’s Blue Hole to share beers and exchange the hops. We lathered up more sunscreen and headed down to Deans.
At Deans we heard this familiar voice say “you guys again!” and we went “oh no, guess it’s time we formally introduce ourselves.” As Mel was coming over to us. This other woman works at the local food store, where we always have a great interaction with her, she ran the sailing races on Saturday and then she was at Deans with her friends and family (including Mel) celebrating her wedding anniversary. Mel had invited us to her friend’s anniversary celebration and in a superficial way we knew her friend. Everyone made us feel welcomed and not as if we were an intrusion or unwanted. We stayed for a while enjoying Mel’s delicious homebrew (that’s coconut milk stout in the milk jug), watching the kids jump and getting to know people. Thank you social meeting for bringing people together.
Once home, it was dinner time of risotto and then sunset viewing. The clouds were very heavy with moisture and obscured the setting sun, but the clouds were great to watch.
We’ve been lucky to meet some awesome people through social media, whether personal friends connect us or just starting a conversation with someone because of shared interests.
CTHikergal Travels 
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