We are not dead....but we are Grateful!!!

One of the big highlights of this summer for us was going to the 50 Year Reunion Concert of the Grateful Dead in Chicago. It was over 4th of July weekend and we met 6 of our closest friends from California there. Now Richard had attended many of their concerts way back when, but I (Willow) had never been to one of their concerts. And yes, Jerry Garcia died 20 years ago but the other original band members were all gathered for this 50 year reunion.

So we gathered in Soldier Field Stadium with 70,000 other Dead-Heads for quite a ride! I had never been in such a big crowd and yes, it was daunting and overwhelming at first, but you've never been around a more mellow, loving crowd as this.

Please note that my husband is wearing a tie dye shirt that he wore 45 years ago to the Dead concerts. Yeah it was a little worn (moth eaten holes and torn at the seams) but he still looked "bitchin" as usual!!!

The Captain blissed out on the music...

And as darkness fell Willow turned on her glowing tierra to add to the craziness of the moment...

The psychedelic light show was magical....especially for the thousands of Stoners already rocking to the beat....

The band and the music did not disappoint.....

It truly was an "EXPERIENCE"!!! Too hard to describe, you just had to be there...



We found Chicago to be a city full of life and enjoyed sightseeing and getting to know it. We even enjoyed the museums and this statue so playful and light-hearted as my husband...

After our time in Chicago we traveled on to Highlands, North Carolina for Richard to play in a golf tournament with his brother-in-law, Paul. Well....they didn't win but sure had a hell of a good time trying!

Golf during the day and fancy cocktails, dinner and dancing in the evenings to keep us women happy too.

And then traveling on to Charleston, South Carolina to see the rest of Richard's family.

One fun filled evening with Richard's two sisters, Judy and Vicki and his mom, Betty. If I remember correctly, there were a lot of Margaritas and laughter involved with this dinner!

And back to our desert home in Tucson. We are especially enjoying the desert this time of year as it is the monsoon season. We have torrential rains almost daily with dramatic thunder and lightening. And then the rainbow coming off of the mountains behind our house. The desert is as green as we have ever seen it and we are so thankful for the blessed rain.

It's been a busy and wonderful summer and Life continues to surprise and amaze us with it's wonders.
Aaaahhhhh.....

Glynda, not Nemo

We are resting, relaxing and spending time here in the British Virgin Islands before sailing on to the States. And best of all is the great snorkeling here. We have a favorite cove that we always anchor in because the snorkeling is fantastic---really, it's like swimming in the best aquarium in the world!!!
It's Benures Bay on Norman Island.
And it's here where we met Glynda.  No, we did not find Nemo--but we found Glynda, or rather, she found us.
Now you must be wondering who Glynda is, and i am going to tell you. Better yet i am going to show you...
Soooo, we are snorkeling and as always, in awe of the splendor beneath the ocean when i notice a little yellow fish hanging around the Captain. And not only hanging around but swimming in his hair, and all around him. Now she liked me too (but just a little) and she would swim right in front of my goggles so i could see her, but she clearly was enamored with my husband. She was the only one of her kind and no matter how far we swam, she stayed right with us for about an hour until we sadly had to climb into the dingy and go back to the boat. It was uncanny, yet sweet and we really did not want to leave her but what could we do??? bring her home in a fishbowl???
Our time with her (and you may wonder how we know she was a "her"--she was clearly feminine and as are all females, in love with my husband who is the one who named her "Glynda" by the way) was magical, playful and even spiritual as there was genuine interaction and communion. And lest you think we are crazier than normal, it was a once in a lifetime experience!!!

And even tho these pictures cannot convey the essence of our time together, here goes:

This is a short video of her from our GoPro camera:

Isn't she cute?

See how tiny she is:

She swam in sync with the Captain right where he wears his wedding ring around his neck:

Just under his chin swimming along:

Oh she loves my man and snuggles with him as only a fish can do...

See, she likes me a little:

We also enjoyed watching the many sea turtles swim and surface all around the boat as we were anchored out:

And even got a good picture of one on the bottom as we snorkeled around it:

And of course, an underwater selfie:

And how we wish we could capture the beauty and color of the fauna below the sea to show you, but that just doesn't seem to be possible. Yes, the magic of the Caribbean is below the surface!

And since nothing could top our time with Glynda, we decided to move on out of the British Virgin Islands and sail north to Charleston, South Carolina where we will leave EcstaSea for the summer.
Thank you Caribbean and most of all....Thank you Glynda!!!

Last Antigua Moments

As we prepare to begin the sail back up to the States to leave EcstaSea for the summer, we took full advantage of our last days on Antigua.

Shirley Heights where you can not only see the panoramic view of the island, but dance the night away to the awesome steel drums, is still one of our favorite places. So we went back several more times to drop into the Caribbean beat and enjoy the best "dark and stormy" rum drinks on the island!

We also returned to our favorite coves to anchor out, snorkel and do what we do best....nothing at all.

The Captain (altho it's really the First Mate's job) dove on the anchor,  checking to see that it is well set---notice the thumbs up!!!

He also enjoys diving down and picking up the conch shells just to look at their beautiful pink colorful undersides
:

And he always puts them gently back where he found them...

And now we are ready to sail on up to the British Virgin Islands on our way north. Thank you Antigua and Barbuda for our wonderful winter time with you...

Backyards

In our Tucson home, I start my mornings out in the hammock on the backyard patio. My loving husband makes me a big cup of coffee and there i sit and swing every morning. And i notice that except for the clouds moving by, my backyard is pretty much the same every morning--not much changes. The beautiful mountains are still there to the north, the trees are still in the same place, and the hummingbirds still come for their nectar.

But not here on EcstaSea...Every morning the loving Captain still makes me a big cup of coffee and i sit on the veranda (cockpit) and look out into my backyard. My ever changing backyard--depending on which way we are swinging on the anchor. And that is one of the many gifts of living on EcstaSea. The constant reminder of the transient, temporary, and ever-changing nature of life!!!

Somehow living on land causes us to be more forgetful of this law of nature, as we are not living in a setting that moment to moment changes.  And living on the ever moving, fluidness of the ocean, we remember and honor the way it is.
And so we wanted to share some of our backyards with you...

The island of Montserrat with the plumes of smoke from it's volcano.

Bird Island in Nonsuch Bay.

Another gorgeous sunset...

Another rainbow leaving it's pot of gold on the little island in the sea....

And another over an island in North Sound. There is no lack of rain or rainbows here in the Caribbean.

Sharing our backyard and sunset with another...

February's full moon rising between the masts at Jolly Harbor....

Just hanging out in our backyard...our ever-changing, transient, temporary, yet perfect backyard!!!

Beautiful Barbuda

We had a great sail north to the island of Barbuda. It is the sister island to Antigua and only 30 miles north. In various travel magazines it is called the most beautiful Caribbean island that you will probably never see. And there is a good reason for that--- there are only 2 hotels on the island with both of them being extremely expensive (1-3 thousand a night) and only 1 real place to eat other than the hotels. There are miles and miles of deserted white and pink sand beaches altho they are difficult to land a dingy on with lots of undertow. But we were determined to see it after a challenge like that.

Anchored off the beach in crystal clear water, there are many turtles swimming around and bopping their heads up for a breath. But we've decided that they must be shy, as when we tried to see them or swim with them when we snorkeled, they disappeared fast. But it was entertaining to just sit on the boat and watch them all around.

We had heard that Princess Diana used to come here often and had a favorite beach named after her. Well one day going ashore we came across this sign that signified that this was her beach:

So we just had to take a selfie here on her beach:

There are 2 things that they (the travel magazines and everyone we met) say one must do on Barbuda.
One is to go and have grilled lobster at Uncle Roddy's Lobster Shack. So we called Uncle Roddy and he came and met us on the beach and drove us to his little restaurant. He told us how much he had liked Princess Diana and how when he served her she always reminded him that she only wanted to be treated like any one else.

We were the only ones at the restaurant (as seems to be typical around here--they only open if someone wants to come) and really had the best time as they grilled the lobster to perfection. We also had grilled plantains:

I (Willow) had never had lobster before, let alone a whole one and i ate the whole thing...

Uncle Roddy also told us about Robert DeNiro buying the closed K Club Resort along the beach and it's in the works to reopen with an even bigger and better resort.

The second thing they say not to miss is the Frigate Bird Colony which is the largest one in the world. So once again we struggled with our dingy going ashore where we met our guide Clifford, and he took us in his little boat across the lagoon to the colony. The first thing we saw was thousands of frigates flying in the air above the mangrove trees, but then.....
Thousands of frigate birds nesting in the mangrove trees for as far as you could see.

Frigates are big birds with wing spans sometimes  8 feet wide and are great at snatching fish from the surface of the water or from other birds. But they don't land in the water due to their wing span and inability to fly once wet.

The males sit in the trees during mating season and expand the big orange pouch making a clacking sound saying "Pick me, pick me" to the females. Of course, in all of nature (humans included), the females are the choosers and so it is that the males are the more colorful as they need to attract the attention of the ladies. And man oh man do these male birds strut their stuff:

This guy is really going all out as he lies on his back for all of the flying females to see:

It's a long mating season with males and females mating only once during that time, with the females laying only 1 egg. Once mated, the male and female take turns guarding the egg or chick while the other fishes and brings food back to the nest.

It was an amazing experience and of a magnitude that we cannot even describe. We were able to be right in the midst of thousands of frigates....colorful, noisy males, females and so many chicks!!!
We were so thankful and definitely agree that it is not to be missed.


We have never seen as many rainbows as we see here in the Caribbean, and you might think that they could become ho-hum. But they are still magical to us and we really were in awe of this complete rainbow off of the coast of Barbuda. It was ocean to ocean and so big that i couldn't even get it completely in the picture.
What would happen if we sailed right over to the end of it? A pot of gold?

We already have our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.......
                                                           It's our love, our life, and EcstaSea!!!