Australian Rain

Big drops hitting a metal roof, but so slowly I think it sounds more like a child playing on drums.    I've been asleep for hours, a mistake as now the time is only 1:09.  A streetlight highlights the big coconut palm in the backyard, the only separator between me and the water.   Lights from small boats dot the blackness of the water.   And ah.... The smell of the salt water, the breeze drifting through the house, keeps me wanting to stay under the covers.  I snuggle deeper, feeling the small grains of sand which are impossible to prevent from sharing the bed. The sand sticks to the remnants of the zinc-based sunscreen on my skin; one application can easily last through three hot showers. A piercing scream of a bird interrupts the night; he sounds desperate to find another of his kind.    The rain continues to throw large raindrops against the metal roof.  I must try to sleep .. 5 am and the laziness of the night will abruptly end with a buzz of large parrots.   I will be out on my SUP board no later than six, enjoying morning flat waters that last typically until nine, a perfect time to celebrate the coffee shop opening on the island (a store three hills back up the island located next to a pet shop that sells loud, noisy birds and rents videos.)