Alex and Josh arrived yesterday and have settled in - Chances pizza for lunch, Best in the West for dinner. Good start. No sign of the Cake Lady last night though.
Today it is cool and windy and big waves are pounding the beach.Going for a walk later, then Sunnyside for beers. Arranging for pub crawl on Wed and YS Falls on Thursday. Big concert at Waves on Wed nite - Lady Shaw and a whole bunch more. Gonna be busy. Willhave lots of phoyos and ty'ings to say, but later.
More crew arriving today and tomorrow.
I mentioned earlier that birds feast on the ripe fruit in the Ethiopian apple tree that is situated just outside our balcony. Well, at night – the fruit bats come. Dozens and dozens of them. These ‘rat bats’, as the Jamaicans call them, have a wingspan of about one foot. When I first got here, there were no bats at night in that tree. But it only took one bat to find it, then the next night he came back with all of his cave buddies. They begin arriving around an hour after sunset. They set up an orbit around the tree, swiftly winging around and around to periodically dive into the foliage and light on a fruit-laden branch. There must be forty or fifty of them, it’s quite a spectacle. They eat for a while then resume their orbits. As they fly, they occasionally make a twitter/chip sound. They also relieve themselves, squirting guano on the side of the building and deck flooring. The railing is not currently a good place to hang a towel out to dry.
Our chambermaid, Janet from another Planet, curses them, ‘Dem rat-bat, dey dutty, dutty. I wanta hit dem in de head!” whenever she’s swabbing bat poop from the tiles of the balcony. Their feast creates a huge mess under the tree as well, it is littered with half eaten apples, leaves that have been knocked off and myriad small chunks of fruit. The gardeners rake and sweep it up every day.
These bats are not shy, if I stand on the balcony and lean out a little, a few of the bats will break away from their dizzying orbits to come over to check me out. They flit by me, about a foot from my face, then return to their business.
Check out this photo of one of the bats coming over to check me out.
