Beautiful Boys

Here are just a few of the many, many pictures I took in October of '06, when my friends and family went on a cruise together. We do that every now and then, go cruise to the Caribbean and frighten the locals. I know these are old, but I'm just catching up to myself. On this particular day we went to Coki Beach on St. Thomas, leaving the ship and most of its inhabitants behind with their planned excursions. Because I had a then three-year-old child, and said child had been penned up aboard ship for days (yes, even on those huge ships, a kid doesn't have much running room), I wanted a place where I could relax and he could delight himself with sand, sea, and unlimited room to splash, paddle, and outright swim. Quite a few of our group came along, and they were wonderful friends, watching after him and taking him into the deep water to splash and feed the fishes...and there were a lot of fishes. The folks who ran the little concession behind us offered Milk Bones along with mask and flipper rental, and we accepted the whole deal. Turns out, those tropical fish really like Milk Bones! Bird shrieked, giggled, and made some fishy friends. We ate conch fritters and other local treats, sipped frosty adult beverages, and generally had an "ahhhh..." kind of afternoon.

Coki Beach, here I come!

Ahh, beach lovely.

Faugh, sand bad!!

Mmm, Conch Fritters good!

The only picture of my mother she'll let me post on the web without complaining.

Beautiful boys.

The last one is a particular favourite of mine. It's one of my dear friends, Ric, holding Bird. Bird was wearing a swim nappie for this excursion, which is fine...until it's time to go and half the sand on the beach has ended up in your child's bits and pieces. Ric hadn't dried off yet, so he offered to strip the boy, dunk him, and return him to me as clean as sea water could make him. That's a friend. I shot this as they emerged from their mutual dunking, and it flat takes my breath away. The difference in skin tone, the happy grins, the strength of Ric's hands and arms as he holds my sweet little boy...sigh. There are so very few uncomplicatedly happy moments in life...I am happy to have caught this one on film.

Next stop, Alaska...someday...maybe...