I’m sick. Fever and aches and pains. And I’d so much wanted to arrive here and hit the ground running and instead I’m kind of stumbling around… We arrive at about 09:30, have some welcome hugs and catch up on gossip, then go to the room to unpack. I lay down on the bed and pass out, burning hot. At some point in the afternoon the fever breaks and I emerge from the room in time for the 5pm meeting. Saturday’s are a day of cleaning up after the previous weeks participants, and meetings to discuss what needs to happen and how we’re all getting on. So I’ve missed the practical meeting and in the sharing meeting I’m kind of subdued and not a little spaced out.

But I’m present enough to get that my jobs will be preparing the lunch buffet and helping out on the boat and in the water to make sure all the participants are happy and safe. And Monday is, if I want, a day that I can have off of the boat. It all sounds pretty easy, even in my post fever state and I look forward to Sunday, which is a general day off for everyone and I intend to spend much of it sleeping and recovering.

On the way here we’d stopped off in Fort Lauderdale for three days, in order to do a bit of beach bumming and a little shopping, of which we did little of either in the end. We did find a wonderful hotel there, the Tropi Rock Resort. RUn by nice folks, a small friendly place with a unique feel, each room being decorated differently. But wandering around doing shopping and stuff, going from 30 degree heat to icy air conditioning and back again really did me in and I ended up with a sore throat. Monday morning, early start with breakfast, a quick orientation meeting until we get a call from the airport that the plane from Florida has landed with the weeks participants and Amlas is off to pick them up.

They’ll get from the airport to Wildquest via Magic Bus and water taxi. Bimini consists of three islands: North Bimini, South Bimini and East Bimini. East Bimini is uninhabited. South Bimini is where the airport is and a couple of Marinas and attached resorts and lots of mosquitoes. North Bimini is where everyone lives and is separated from South by about 100m of water, for which a water taxi is needed. So, a full journey from airport to Wildquest is a bus/taxi from airport to water, water taxi, and then taxi from Government Dock to Wildquest.

But in this case the folks are being brought up from South Island all the way to WQ’s dock directly in a larger water taxi and we’re all on the dock to welcome everyone. It’s exciting and soon there are 20 or so new participants clambering on to the dock and there is also the weeks supplies to be unloaded and packed into the freezers before they defrost. After the new folks have found their rooms, had a coffee, we all get together in the med room for orientation.

They are mainly here to be with Mirabai Devi, a spiritual teacher. A lovely group of people and we have a great week together and get to swim with lots of dolphins.

I’m also feeling the heat and, looking back, I guess I was having a mild heatstroke. I knew I was a bit spaced out when I jumped in the water with my hat and sunglasses on and tried to put the mask over them!