It was a sunny day in mid-May. I had gotten up early and was feeling restless.

I cleared the drying rack, washed the dishes, and worked on repotting some plants and mixing soil for the balcony garden.

Ian and I chatted with his parents on FaceTime.

Then it was high tide, around 11ish in the morning.

Ian, sensing my restlessness, suggested we go for a paddle to the lagoon mangroves out back, and I immediately brightened up.

We would normally go to the beach in the front, but the trade winds were blowing extra strong which would make paddling with momentum nearly impossible. Besides, we hadn’t hung out in the mangroves in a long time.

I was getting hungry—we hadn’t eaten anything all morning—and started making an egg omelette (or a disheveled scramble, really) with onions, cheese, turkey sausage, and mushrooms. We packed the omelette in containers with a wooden spork, tobasco hot sauce, a bag of chips, a bowl of homemade hummus, a flask of juice and rum, and another flask with water. And we were ready to go.

Ian grabbed our stand up paddleboards from the rack behind the house while I lathered up in sunblock and changed into a bikini and lavalava and we got our boards in the water.

We saddled our boards next to each other to share our brunch picnic, then explored the maze-like mangroves, watching birds and laying on our backs to look up at the sky.

It felt good to get out of my routine and do something different.

When we paddled back home, I thought to myself: how lucky am I to live in such a beautiful place, have this sweet hunk of a man as my husband, and to be able to feel so free outside?! I truly am…

Here’s a reel I put together from that little morning adventure.

Photo journal compilation from off the camera roll…