So far we (Cassie and I) have spent our time tanning, writing postcards, reading, eating, taking in the sunset with $1 drinks in hand, enjoying the nightlife, and island hopping. Our island hopping experience is one to remember as this was Cassie's first snorkel experience and also my first jellyfish sting and 'shipwreck' as we will call it.
For one stop we went out and saw some beautiful coral and a lot of coloured fish. I was feeding bread to the fish, having a great time. A couple minutes in I realized that the current was a lot stronger than I thought and so I looked around to find the boat a long ways away. There were 3 of us from the boat that chose to snorkel so everyone else sat on the boat and socialized, not realizing that we were pretty stranded. We tried our hardest to swim back but got absolutely nowhere. We were getting pretty tired and I was getting a little panicked as I didn't think I would need a life jacket (I have a natural buoyancy... my bum).
Our boat guide came to swim up back with us in a group but even he couldn't move!! The Ocean Ranger (think: old man in a little blue wooden canoe) came along and got me to hold onto the back of his boat- and then he proceeded to crash into another boat while I was hanging onto the back! The owners of the commercial 'sailboat' (named the Sea Monster) ordered us to hop onto the boards that balanced the boat. It was then that I felt an immense stinging on my legs!! I was sure something was there! I couldn't see a ting so I tried to swat away whatever it was to no avail. Finally I made it aboard the ship. The stinging stopped and we had no plan. By this time the Ocean Ranger paddled away. Thanks. After about 5 minutes the guys were like "hey, you can swim from here, right?" Umm. My inside voice: "If I could swim from here I wouldn't be on your boat right now buddy!" My outside voice:
Then at last our boat had a genius idea to use the rope. So, they threw the rope with all their might and sure enough, we held onto the rope and found our way to safety. Whew! Meanwhile, no one on our boat had ANY clue that we were in any sort of imminent danger. They were all like "Really? You couldn't swim back? Oh, that's what took you so long!!" Dorks.
As a side note here, the jellyfish are small and invisible. Thankfully the sting wounds were gone within a few hours and life goes on. The sunburn acquired, however, is still prevalent. The curse of the buoyant bum!! I am grateful for Banana Boat Aloe Vera gel.
More stories to come... and pictures too!
