The Great Snorkeling Adventure

Hola! On Wednesday we planned to be a little more adventurous and go snorkeling. See some little fishies. That kind of thing. We were supposed to go to a certain store in the “Isle Mall” and meet our guide at noon. Ok, so we went about 10 so we’d have time to browse the shops, etc. I think it listed the time as three hours in the brochure, without all that much information. We met up with the FunJet guy at noon, and got on a bus. We met a couple from Romania currently living in Chicago, and she asked if they were providing lunch. I didn’t know, but thought I’d read that they would provide soda. “I should have brought some food,” she said, and I was thinking the same thing. Oh well, if we miss a lunch it won’t kill us, since we’ve been eating so much at all these buffets. The short bus ride turned into an HOUR bus ride, with the last few minutes through windy, bumpy roads. Do you see where I’m going with this? There’s a little thing called motion sickness that I struggle with, and already I wasn’t feeling too great. At the place, they split us into groups who were doing different activities–4 wheelers, fishing, snorkeling, horseback riding. We got into the snorkeling group and waited for our guide, Fernando or something like that. He led us over to a big catamaran and we all took off our shoes and climbed aboard.

Now, at first, sailing is quite fun. You’ve got the wind in your face, the beautiful blue water, the sun, the sunscreen, and it’s quite an experience. But when we sail in one direction for about 20 minutes and then sail right back to in front of where we started, I get a little tired of it. Then they put down the anchor and explained to us how our snorkel gear works. Don’t breathe through your nose. Only your mouth. I should be able to do that; just think yoga breathing only the opposite. Ryan had a little trouble with his mask–he thought it maybe was his large head, but got it on. We donned our flippers and life jackets, put our masks on and jumped into the ocean. After a bit of panic every time I put my face in the water, I started to breathe. At first I would breathe out under water and then lift my head up to breathe in every time. You don’t see many fish that way, however, so I finally got brave enough to stick my face in and keep it there for a few breaths. And, wow! There are fish RIGHT there! I didn’t see Nemo, but I think I saw Dorie and her cousins. There were a lot of yellow and grey fish, some black ones, some brown ones, long swishy plant things–it really was incredible. Ryan’s mask kept giving him trouble and filling with water, so he got a lot more water up the nose than I did, but we stuck it out. I guess we were swimming around for 45 minutes or so, and I was exhausted. It wasn’t nice calm clear water like they show in the brochures, it was hard work.

When we got back to the boat, I pulled myself up and plopped down on the floor and stayed there for a long time. The motion sickness was back and I felt like I was going to throw up. I took a grateful drink of Pepsi and then a water bottle from the guides, and sipping that helped a little, but that boat was still rocking, rocking, rocking! We went to another place, and about 3/4 of the people jumped off to snorkel some more. I sat in my spot, not moving the tiniest little bit, trying to overcome the motion sickness. “I don’t want to be adventurous,” I told Ryan, “I want to sit on my balcony and read my book.” Ryan didn’t opt to snorkel the second time, either. I’m not sure if it was because he was worried about me or because he didn’t want another dose of salt water. He couldn’t find his nose plugs until later, although they were right there in his pocket. We heard from our Romanian friends that the snorkeling was better at the second stop–I guess it was 10 feet deeper– but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to get back to dry land. What a wimp!

After everyone came back aboard, our guides brought out the “spinnaker”, which is a smaller sail that has a rope seat thing. You jump out to the water, situate yourself on the rope seat, and then the guys let some of the rope out and the wind whips the sail (and the passenger) up in the air. It’s kind of like a mini-parasail. Anyone who wanted to “fly” lined up along the side of the boat and took a turn. If I had been feeling well and a lot more brave, I would have loved to try it. I tried to encourage Ryan to do it, but he didn’t want to go, either. A couple of gutless wimps, we too.

We finally arrived at the beach around 5:15, just in time to use the bathroom and then board the bus. I had the plastic bag from the waterproof disposable camera that we bought for a make shift barf bag that I thought I might have to use on that windy bumpy bus ride, but eventually the road evened out and I survived. I was extremely grateful to get back to our hotel!

We had time to shower and change before we met our friends for dinner. We compared stories of our days and enjoyed dinner, then went to the show together. Ryan opted out of the show, and came back to rest in the room. So, although it wasn’t the perfect excursion, we were adventurous. We canceled our trip for today, which would have taken us back to that same place to ride 4 wheelers and jet skis. We maybe should have scheduled that one first. Today we plan to relax here by the beach, hit the market and NOT be adventurous.

A few full size pictures from the trip are available HERE

UPDATE: All the pictures from the trip are now posted here.