First Time Trip Report from a Long Timer, Base Camp - Treehouse

[mmtripoli@earthlink.net]

Woke up early again on Friday and did my morning walk with my “Aunties”. That is what I had taken to calling the ladies as every morning on our walk someone asked me if they were my aunties. To be so lucky! What a beautiful day but apparently a storm had come in overnight and the whole beach was filled with kelp and starfish. Hundreds of them (maybe thousands.) I hope they survived. Not sure if this was a frequent occurrence or not but kind of startling to see. Some tourists were trying to throw them back in the surf other locals told me that they are all “too weak” and they were going to die. Does anyone know anything about this? The funniest thing that happened with the starfish was that a young policeman was walking a long and a family of tourist asked him about the starfish. He was telling them how they have stingers on the bottom that come out of the “mouth” area and you have to be careful picking them up. He as attempting to pick one up but was so scared he kept dropping it. I didn’t want to embarrass him by correcting him (I don’t know of any species that have stingers…) but I picked it up and handed it to him carefully while making him promise to put it right back without hurting it. I teased him by reading his name and badge number, telling him that I would find him if something bad came to that particular starfish and continued on my way. Man, I wish I had a picture of that kid cop holding that starfish all scared! At least I have my memory of it (well for now, at least!)

We had a great day and met a lot more guests - Will and Marissa from NY, Terri & Elliot from Chicago, Ritchie from FL. Invited everyone we had met to stop by for the birthday party later. I believe we got patties from Norman and Jerk pork from Dean on this day for lunch. Norman had shrimp curry patties this time. Yum if your a fan of curry. Dean’s pork was delicious but as previously mentioned, the spicy pork was a little too hot for most. I loved it. The regular pork was perfect for all. We decided we should start the jello shots early in the afternoon (don’t remember why we decided this???) and everyone enjoyed both mango and pineapple jello shots. Delicious, but dangerous – you can’t taste the alcohol if you use mango rum for the mango jello and pineapple rum for the pineapple jello.

JD otherwise known as Birthday Princess wanted Norma’s at Sea Splash for dinner so 7 of us headed over. It did rain during dinner but we just scooted our table over away from the where the rain was blowing in. The smoked Marlin served like sashimi was absolutely incredible! Why hasn’t anyone ever mentioned this before – or did I just miss it? How did I not get a picture of this masterpiece? Everything from the snapper to the coconut chicken was scrumptious. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how Geri had all of us absolutely dying laughing. She told a story of how her husband had missed THE shot when her daughter was born by c-section. The story went on and on, getting funnier and funnier as it went along (probably had to be there) and ended a ½ an hour later with the fact that this had all happened 27 years ago and it was a good thing she was completely over it! Yes, what a good thing – she SEEMED completely over it. She could be a comedian. Her timing was absolutely perfect. Turns out that sums up the whole experience - perfect service, perfect meal, perfect company! I did get a picture or two.




It was then back to the porch for birthday cake. Fake mustaches and tiara’s/crowns for everyone. Why? Who knows, it seemed necessary at the time. Everyone did seem to be having a great time even though we looked ridiculous. Also, the cake that Treehouse had made for the occasion was unbelievable! (There was only one tiny piece left and Birthday Princess ate it the next morning.) We danced, sang and told funny stories for a couple of hours. About 11:30 JK came out and let us know (not so subtly) that it was time for everyone to go – she had skipped dinner and she seemed to be feeling even worse than before.