This first encounter will certainly stick with me for a long time to come.

The tour did not only include the grounds though. An eager cook invited us to inspect the restaurants kitchen, showed us the fresh ingredients for the tonights dinner and pointed out how very clean and organized everything was. We got to say hello to the whole kitchen staff only minutes into our stay. That too was a first.

I can no longer give you a perfect play-by-play of our stay, but there were special moments that have burned themselves into my memory.

One of them was during our first snorkeling expedition, minutes after tossing the suitcases onto our beds. We entered the water on the south side and swam around the terrasses to the cove, that cuts into the cliff on the other side and disappears into a cave.





On the bottom is large sandy area with slopes of coral rock on each side. I let myself sink some 30 feet to the bottom and touched down lightly onto the sand. Hovering indian-style I took in the view.

The water has the clarity of air and, with the mid-day light beaming through, the bright space between the cliffs looks simply enormous. I immediately thought of a cathedral, the quietness under water only accentuated by the omnipresent crackling noise of coral being eaten and shells being cracked. Tropical fish with their myriads of bright colors floated like molten pieces of stained glass though the this palatial space.

At the entrance of the cave at the end, a school of silvery fish stuck their heads out, then disappeard, then came out again, to check if every thing was still in good order. Had I not run out of air - oh, I would have stayed much longer.