Caye Caulker, Belize - Morning Coffee

The sun rises behind low clouds every morning that hug the horizon so I don't see the suns orb until it's up a half hour from my perch here about 60 feet from the waters edge and twenty feet up. Our two bedroom apartment is over the Braisas del Mar restaurant. Out front the restaurant has seven tables half with umbrellas for diners on the sand below several coconut palm trees whose fronds rattle under the delightful cudgels of a const...ant sea breeze. I get up early and benefit from the shade provided by the palms until eventually the sun rises high enough to shine directly into my eyes whereupon I retreat having consumed enough coffee by then to ambulate. By about 1:30PM the sun passes through its tropical zenith nearly straight overhead and the eve of the house casts the deck here into a cool, afternoon shade. After walking around the island and returning here, I feel that by luck I have stumbled upon the coolest part of the island here on the windward side facing almost due east into the Caribbean Sea.

I can see the water taxi from here as it makes it's first run of the morning and underneath me on “1st Street” - just a path in the sand mostly trodden barefoot or in sandals with an occasional golf cart – young lovers stroll hand and hand heading toward the Water Taxi each carrying an enormous backpack with snorkeling gear, kite boards and various other paradisiacal paraphernalia.