The last day on Jost and the terrible attack

Man. I could use another vacation already. I have not been good at posting posts (there's a good sentence for you!) because we had a terrible terrible thing happen on Thursday evening.

Our beloved sweet adorable wonderful gentle kind doggie Koty endured a vicious attack from a neighbor's dog.That's our adorable Koty boy on the left with the fishy in his mouth. He likes to "help" us when we're fishing!

This rotten, angry, evil American bulldog (related to pit bulls I'm told) came flying out from behind a the owner's house, unleashed. The thing went immediately after Koty. It glommed onto Koty's throat and that was that. The damn dog would NOT LET GO of Koty for the longest time. It felt like an eternity. I was certain that Koty was going to die right there. The owner finally came out and started punching and kicking the dog, Dan and I did the same, but this dog was DETERMINED to kill our poor boy.

Needless to say it was the most horrifying, terrifying thing we have EVER seen.

Turns out that the dog's teeth just barely barely missed Koty's jugular vein and his trachea. Another 1/8th of an inch and the story would not have ended as well as it did. As it is, poor Koty had to undergo emergency surgery. They had to cut away skin that was too traumatized to save and then he had to have 100 stitches and a big, gross drain put in to drain all the excess fluids that build up from such a terrible gash.

We are very, very thankful that our sweet boy is still alive.

Moral of the story? If you have a dangerous dog like that, please move to the country where other people and dogs do not have to be subjected to your animal. Man. SO scary. I worry now that if that dog ever gets loose, I can't imagine what it would do to a smaller dog. Or if I was out with our two older dogs walking by myself? I shudder to think what could happen. Really scary.

OK. That's enough of that. I don't even like to think about it any more.

So, I could use a vacation again, okay?

Let us re-visit Jost Van Dyke for one last time, shall we? The following pictures were from our last day there. Always the saddest day of a vacation, right? Knowing you're returning to snow and cold. YUCK!

Here is a short video of the view from our beach chairs!


The view from my husband's perspective:
I love that photo!

Here I am having a drink called a pain killer on the beach:
Do you know from the pain killer? They are SO delicious! They are a combination of sweet coconut, orange juice, a vat of rum and grated nutmeg. TO. DIE. FOR. delicious!

Here is the bartender at Ivan's making our drinks:
Love Ivan's!

Here we are with this really nice man that we met the first night of our trip.

He and his wife were from Minnesota and this was like their 20th year vacationing on Jost! He brings his guitar each year and jams out with some of the locals at our favorite eatery on Jost, called Corsair's. You'll see Corsair's in this video - this is the burgeoning metropolis of Great Harbor on Jost:

It's quite the downtown, eh?!! Love it!

And, last, the sunset on the beach with my beloved husband:


A wonderful, fantastic trip! Can't wait to go back!

Hope you enjoyed our travels, as well!

Send good, healing thoughts our way. Our doggie is on the mend, but he could use some good ju-ju.

Bye for now!

More randomness from Jost Van Dyke

We are nearing the end of the never-ending travelogue, my friends! Hope this is not too boring! Otherwise I'd be taking pictures of me painting our upstairs bathroom and other exciting things like that!! I certainly lead a wonderous and exciting life, right?!!

First we have a picture of where our villa was situated on this big hill that overlooks White Bay:
Ours is the one waaaay up there on the upper left side of the picture, 2nd one in. Utterly amazing view:


Here's one of the many sand crabs that would zing around the beach digging their holes and looking adorable:
This was the biggest one we saw, he was probably about 6 inches across.

Some shots of the inside of Ivan's Stress-Free bar while we were having lunch one day:

It's all decorated with a million shells.

Another gorgeous sunset:

This was a grouping of Hobie Cat people. They camped out in tents that they put up over the canvas thingy that stretches between the two pontoons. They packed up everything in the morning and then sailed off!
The sails are so pretty.

Here's the hubby in prime vacationing position!

And last, but not least for today, is this cool little dog that we saw EVERYWHERE on the island. This doggie got AROUND!
During the day she played and visited people on the beach. She learned that she could dig up the sand crabs and then she would play with them until she accidentally killed it! Then, she'd dig another one up and play with that for a while until it perished! So cute!! In the evening, this doggie made her way over to the "town" part where all the people went at night. Smart little thing! Seemed happy as could be!

Ok. That's it for today. I'm off to walk the dogs (who are decidedly NOT as self-sufficient as the dog above!) and then figure out what to make for dinner!

Hope you're all having a fabulous week!

Jost Van Dyke, installment 762

I am wondering now if we are those people that take TOO many pictures on their vacation. We used to be the people that didn't even bring a camera along and now I realize we took 150 pictures in a measly 6 days!! Of course, I got a bit carried away with the whole "Let's take sunset pictures every night that we're here!" and I commandeered the camera and took 12 pictures of just ONE sunset!! Hey, it's pretty - what can I say?

Here are three of the prettiest of those:




Back underwater for a bit now with another sort of pretty fishy:


A parrot fish:


A loggerhead turtle!
(By the by, I didn't see this turtle on this trip, but have snorkeled with many a turtle in the past!)

And, another round of cuttlefish pictures:


We are big fans of the cuttlefish!

We are nearing the end of the trip now - we'll have just two or three more installments coming up.

In other world news - I am already starting to get nervous a little about some upcoming talks I have to give. The first one is a week from Monday where I am going to give a slide show/talk about whales. Now, if you have just stumbled along out of the blue that would sound sort of strange. Here's this blog entitled Life with Flowers, that - most of the time - seems to have absolutely NOTHING to do with flowers! Mostly - lately, anyway - it's a big brochure promoting Jost Van Dyke!

Well, dear friends, let me lay it out for you! In my former life, I was a whale researcher! For almost 20 years that was what I did. I even had my own non-profit group dedicated to research and education on whales. Of course, I have not done anything whale-related for a loooong time - 6 years? So, I'm just saying the old noggin' is a bit rusty on the whale factoids!! Yikes. I have to get up in front of these ladies I sort of know and act like I sort of know what the hell I'm talking about! Eeeek!

After that I have two other talks coming up about flowers and how to plant a properly designed planter and flower box. I do demonstrations and they are really quite fun!

In the midst of that, I've also agreed to fill in for my husband's father's assistant when she goes on vacation. The father is a dentist, so I get to do exciting and wonderous things like clean dental tools that have been in someone's mouth! Oh, it's absolutely gross! I've done it before and unfortunately know what to expect!

So, I've got all THAT stuff going for me!

ACK! I need a vacation!