Portuguese bodies - August 22, 2013

I woke up from a short snooze yesterday, sat up off the couch and looked out the window at the "swimming hole".  Thats been my routine lately.  To look out at the water.  It's there and I can hear it almost all the time, so why not look at what it's up to?  The tide is a strange thing.  I need to research more into how the moon effects what it does and when it does what it does.  It was REALLY high yesterday around 3pm.  Really high as in over the platform walls high.  The night before we had gone

                                        (The view I see - excuse the quality lacking iPad pic)

to Buzius for dinner with John Kitsteiner and had taken a short stroll down on the platform after.  Josh jumped down 6 or so feet into the hole to poke around at a sea cucumber that had suctioned itself to the wall.  At that point, there was hardly any water in the swim hole.  A few larger fish were trapped in the lower spots here and there waiting for the tide to come back in so they would swim free of their shallow water prisons.  If only they'd thought ahead to that dang, daily changing tide.

So the tide was REALLY high and I figured since it was hot AND muggy, something we had yet to experience since being on the island, I should round up the boys after they woke up and head down to swim.  We'd had a horribly rough morning around the house.  They are all dealing with the changes in vastly different ways.  It hurts to see how they grieve the only life they knew. 

 With their hairs matted to their little heads with sweat and half opened eyes, I wrangled them into swim trunks and shirts and slathered them with sunscreen.  It's easier to come by a sunburn here than anywhere I've ever been. I've been wearing 70 spf daily and I'm STILL red from a burn every evening.  My skin is paying for it too, that constant greasy lather.  And it doesn't seem like it's doing much good.                    We put on our swim shoes and headed down, all lotioned up with one water bottle a few towels and floaty water wings.  The water here is cold.  Not "Turkey Creek" in Niceville, FL cold, but colder than Flathead Lake in MT cold.  It's colder than the Okaloosa Island water, lets just say that.  Colder than our Floridian boys are used to.  We all "ooooohooohooo"ed as we slowly walked down the ramp into the water and decided that sitting on the flooded platform and being half covered over by the incoming waves would be a more fun way to get used to the cold.  Hundreds of sparkly little minnows hovered around our toes and Joel shouted and laughed about them, as he does with any and every fish he sees lately. That.boy.loves.fish! "Shysh!  Shysh!" he yells.  The water would cover over the boys legs and almost up to my waist and then the next second would be down to my ankles.  We sat letting the water entertain us for a good 20 minutes.  Everytime the water would lower Joel would peer over and proclaim, "Awe......Shysh" in a defeated tone of voice.  The water would rush up over his feet and legs again and he'd gleefully paddle his feet and shout about the "shysh" he could see.        A contented smile.  It was good to sit with the boys, in the cold salty water, surrounded by beautifully olive colored portuguese bodies.  Judah and I stick out like sore thumbs with our freckles and blindingly white skin, but the two other blend a bit better with their dark hair and eyes and tanning bodies.  I feel awkward down at the swim hole.  We aren't used to seeing as much skin as we see here.  The standards and norms for women's swim suits here are very different.  Regardless of age, body type or sometimes even gender it seems that the norm here is to wear as little fabric as possible.  On hot days, and even on warm cloudy days there will be dozens upon dozens of Portuguese bodies plastered all over the concrete at any swim platform you pass - and there are a lot of them.  Me, with my white body, pregnant belly (I'm certain I can count on one hand how many pregnant women I've seen since we got here - and most of them are Americans), tankini and clearly sunscreen lathered parts stand out in the crowd.  I think when traveling overseas it's a good thing to not TRY to stand out in the crowd, but it's inevitable here for me.  I was thinking of getting a sun specific rain umbrella and a longsleeve swim shirt to combat the daily sunburns I've been getting, but that would only worsen it.  I colored my hair dark yesterday to lessen the obvious, if even a little.  I'd been coloring it dark in FL, because I prefer it dark.  So, it seemed fitting.  It may not make a lick of difference.