Stimulated by the invitation from Mrs. C to visit the walkway down to the sea behind her place overlooking Florida Bay, I ventured to the site today after stationing my tricycle beside the marine inlet where the sign was posted that no golf carts were allowed beyond that point.

The enterprise is notable because I had several days ago attempted the identical journey but had halted half-way there. I found it difficult to perambulate upon the coarse grass overlay peculiar to seaside dwellings. I caught a glimpse of the walkway that descended to the sea but I didn’t go any further.

Today however I was determined to quell my curiosity.  I had also just departed the pool (where I had lounged for several hours in the burning sunshine, going in and out of the pool, and was anxious to reacquaint myself with the sea instead). I was, as the saying goes, on a mission. There was no measure of pusillanimity that was about to defeat me in my projected ambition!

Getting down the staircase to the sea was not a difficulty apart from the nuisance of having to cling to the railing to support my damaged left knee. The more critical problem arose when I had to address the relatively precipitous drop from the edge of the walkway into the sea.  I could see that the bottom of the sea was coated with green vegetation, surrounded by large rocks, projections of broken coral and some sandy avenues entwined about the whole.

I made it but not without an effort.  I headed carefully to deeper water.  At last I was able to submerge myself in the sea and regain my equilibrium. I swam for a long while.  I was determined to make something of this event.  A gentleman standing on the beach at the resort nearby watched me with interest. I suspect I was an unpredicted sight. Nonetheless I preserved my purpose, floating face up into the startling white sun. Finally I confessed the necessity to return. It proved to be a less than desirable landing on terra firma. Close to the walkway I fell very unglamorously into the sea. I had grabbed a tree branch but it didn’t hold. My obesity prevailed in that particular attempt. The greater indignity than having to stand upright was the discovery that I had suffered a multitude of scratches in my fall.  My left hand, left arm and left leg were all bloody. There was nothing serious about the abrasions; they were merely the expected reactions of my thin skin and blood to moderate bruising and scrapes.  But they made for a bloody mess. I remained on the edge of the walkway, seated, periodically nursing my so-called wounds (or what I dignified as my “red badges of courage”) with sea water but the bleeding persisted.  I decided to regroup at an upper bench where I had left my shirt, shoes and towel.

The ride back the townhouse on my tricycle was interrupted by having repeatedly to tap my bleeding hand and arm with the towel. I settled within my mind that I shall not be returning to that particular part of the sea in the future. I enjoyed it but it is far less work at the beach at the south end of Buttonwood Bay.

Upon returning to the townhouse there was a message from our housekeeper in Canada.  She was at the apartment to check the mail, etc.  In the process she had taken a photograph from the balcony, looking upriver to the Village of Appleton.  It was a very different view.