The distant wood smoke woke me before dawn, drifting into my bedroom on a gentle sea breeze through the billowing curtains that danced plump and pale like spinnakers. Doves cooed and the bullfinches and bananaquits and blackbirds on the wooden deck began to chirp shrilly. Horses in the paddock in front of the cottage neighed and snorted and the contingent of resident geckos scattered hither and thither as the room slowly illuminated in the early blue light. I lit the gas stove and made a pot of Columbian coffee as my son slept blissfully.

Through my binoculars I surveyed Galley Bay below us, the slumbering Caribbean Sea idling lazily, the sails of passing yachts like diamond shards upon the turquoise and emerald and sapphire. I savored the piping hot coffee and made the easy walk down the slope, through the gate and onto the soft white sand of the deliciously somnolent and entirely empty Galley Bay beach. The shallow curve in front of me resembled a sugar bowl, recently filled and as yet undisturbed. Above me the nascent, infant sky was slowly blooming, high and mighty and unblemished like a vast and perfect tapestry overseeing this most precious morning. I sauntered to the water’s edge and kicked off my flip flops (one Union flag, one Stars and Stripes) and sank into the cool Caribbean, still and fragile and pale blue like Dresden china.

A squadron of pelicans glided over my head, their wings reflected as shimmering phantoms on the sheen of water in front of me. Deep breath and under the water I went, my sunburned, salt and sand-scratched shoulders appreciating the instant relief. Again and again I submerged, swimming upside down and kicking bubbles to the surface, crystal clear and golden as the sun started to color them.

Back on the sand and still no-one else in sight, I selfishly savored every aspect of these moments, mine and mine alone. I hadn’t bothered with a towel but it didn’t matter, the sand on my toes crunched against the flip flops, the baggy shirt stuck to my neck and shoulders and I made my way back up the small hill, passed the inquisitive horses (‘Where’s he been? Where’s he going now?). Along the narrow walkway to our ‘Sea Breeze’ cottage, around the corner to the deck and Sidney was not only up and about but halfway through constructing the most wonderful huevos rancheros with scrambled eggs and chorizo sausage for us both. I fired up another pot of coffee and hugged my son.

‘Good morning kid. What shall we do today?’ Below his tousled hair his constellation of freckles lit up his tanned and handsome face with a smile. ‘Breakfast, coffee and beach?’ I glanced out at the seascape below us and tried to hold onto to this magical soft light and tranquility but, as always, it slipped irrevocably and inexorably through my fingers as the day began to warm and brighten. ‘Sounds like a plan son’ I responded as we shared smiles acknowledging our fortune in this wonderful corner of the world.