Day 2 (November 11, 2017): "Hello, Beach!"


Our first day in paradise!  Up by 8, omelettes by 9, and on the beach by 10.  While the temperatures in Atlantic Canada hovered at or below the freezing mark today, here it was 28C, mainly sunny skies, and a perfect breeze - it doesn't get much better than that, folks.

We thought we would have to fight for beach chairs, but it turns out, there are only 1500 guests right now on a resort that holds 4000.  So there was lots of space on the beach.

Despite Hurricanes Irma and Maria at the end of the summer, there were no signs of hurricane damage on the resort grounds.  We expected the palms to have been stripped, but there was really no evidence of much palm damage.

China has its army of terracotta warriors;  DR has its line of terracotta Dominicans in all types of pose!

The nicely-kept grounds of the Melia Caribe Tropical.

A perfect day for parasailing - the operators were raking it in!

One of those neat palm trees which sends down runners to form roots.


It wasn't just the parasailers who were raking it in;  these two guys plied the beach all day, selling photo opps with their monkey and parrot.  I wonder how the monkey and parrot felt about it?


Late this afternoon, the clouds started to gather.  at 4:43pm, it started to rain.  This wedding started 4:45!  They all got so wet. Talk about horrible timing!  By the way, that is the expansive Baravo Beach.  We walked as far as the point on the right-hand side of the photo today.


As Moses parted the Red Sea, so Pam parted the storm clouds!  OK, OK, so that is just a wee bit melodramatic.


Nothing like the sprinkling of a few drops of rain to empty a beach within minutes!


Who knew JC Penney had set up shop here in the DR!!


This guy was proud to show off his catch this afternoon.


Given that a category 5 hurricane blew through here on the Labour Day weekend, it's hard to imagine how even the old beach palapas remained intact.


Dinner was at the resort's Thai restaurant.  What a great meal!  And what a great end to a perfect day.

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