Island time is real.
All none island dwellers have heard of this phenomenon but few believe it is real. Well believe me it is. Vancouver Island, Big Island, Maui, Utila. ALL of the islands we have been on…and they all live by Island time. Utila was by far the slowest Island time. We went and decided to stay for 3 days…6 days later, the island would not let us leave! It was like an episode of Lost!
I was going to call this blog, we came, we ate, we slept because on Utila that is all we did. Eat. And drink. And sleep. It was just what we needed. There was no pressure to go anywhere because there was nowhere to go! We had a fab bar next door, the Driftwood Cafe (which had the MEANEST ribs I have EVER eaten) which perched over the crytal clear waters. We sat on that perch and dangled our feet into the fish soup and sipped ice cold beers…we had ourselves a little holiday…inbetween the rain that is!
We met some really cool people that we will now call friends until the end of time and really, really relaxed.
With that in mind there is little to tell…apart from the wedding!
Wandering around the island in our island time trance we happened upon the most FANTASTIC magical wonderland known as the Jade Seahorse! It was the last thing I expected and we were both in absolute awe of the beauty of the place. Every surface sparkled, glimmered or glittered in the sunlight, the paths were brightly coloured shards of pottery and trinkets and tidbits hung from every possible place. Globes of colored glass reflected rainbows all around and I felt like I was in wonderland.
As we walked around we could feel eyes following our every move. We ducked under trees and arches and wound our way around the fluid paths of colour but it wasn’t until we were nearly eye to eye with a huge spider that we realised who it was that had been watching us!
With the realisation of our company we opened our eyes properly and saw HUNDREDS of HUGE black and yellow spiders hanging everywhere. The first one was so big and so still I thought it was part of the decor…I had seen doll parts, teaspoons, fish tank ornaments and christmas decorations suspended…why not a huge plastic spider?! As I looked closer to take in the amazing detail I could see the black hair on his knees, the light shining in his eyes and the wind blowing his spidey light body on its huge web. This was NOT a toy!
They are banana spiders and they were everywhere…mainly at face level! We tentatively picked our way back to the safety of the bar and caught our breath and waited for the goosebumps to calm down. It was such an amazing place and so different…we HAD to have a wedding here!
We spoke to Neal who’s blood, sweat and tears had created this mystical myriad of mayhem and on meeting him we knew he was the man we needed to hold the ceremony. He greeted our request of holding a ceremony there with a recital of Shakespear and we left wondering if he had agreed or not!

We decided we would just rock up anyway and hope for the best! Fingers crossed wedding number 13 here we come!