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Excursion: Day at Leisure Swim and Snorkel
I still can’t get the food process right. This morning, I thought I’d actually try to order something instead of having the VERY runny scrambled eggs. I managed to have the guy pour me a water at the table where the pitchers were, since clearly I’ve been violating some prime directive when I tried to do it myself. I still can’t manage to just grab a piece of a bread without him asking me if I want toast. It’s nice I suppose that they’re so on the ball (at least at that table) but I got this.
Normally we’ve just sat down and eaten our buffet items. And people keep coming by – do you want coffee, tee, order something from the menu? No, we’re good. Today, when I actually wanted to order something, nobody. So I finally flagged someone down and asked him. But apparently, he’s not an order taker guy. He’s a wander around and look off into space guy (at least that’s all I saw him do). He flags down the other guy who I order from. The menu says eggs benedict with Canadian bacon or salmon. So I ask for one with bacon. Well, it comes with regular bacon. Which on this boat is good but wide and hard. Which makes it hard to cut. And of course, the egg is barely not raw as all eggs so far have been. So tomorrow, runny scrambled eggs it is. Why is this so hard?
More snorkeling today. We’re taking the zodiacs, which should be fun. But a ‘wet’ landing. Well, how wet? What do we safely bring? All these little things seem so complex. Is that what getting old is like? Ugh.
Speaking of getting old, I managed to get my zodiac life vest on inside out. It’s not that hard to do really but gah! The water is a little rough so getting on the zodiac required some concentration. Plus, you’ve got the life vest on, a backpack, a bag of snorkel gear, and oh, here’s a towel to carry. Now hang on with both hands. Uh, right.
But the traverse over is very slow and not very bouncy. We are parked near a couple of multi-masted sailing ships. One with 3 and one with 5! We get into shore and up onto the beach. So you’re feet get a little wet but that’s it. That’s what I figured but you never know. I didn’t bring my camera just to be safe.
There are umbrellas set up but no chairs. So the umbrellas are all right at eye height. Watch your step! We found a spot and put our towels down and paused to have a look around. Off to the right there’s a contingent of teenagers. Mostly girls. All in bikinis. It’s like the bikini Olympics over there.
We ran into Joe and TK (and accused them of following us). Joe told us about an iguana in the trees behind us. A good-sized one as it turned out. He seemed totally unconcerned with the people around him, so I was able to get close enough with my phone to get a decent picture. He’d stop and bob his head a bunch of times like he was listening to music. Then wander over somewhere else and do it again. It probably is iguana for ‘leave me alone’ but who can say?
Off to one side seems to be where people are snorkeling so after a brief reconnoiter I headed over. I still haven’t quite figured out how to get the flippers on when seated on the beach and then stand up without looking like a newborn baby giraffe. But I managed to get into the water. And… nothing. Not a single fish. Just a sandy bottom with some grass. The swells were pretty good so just floating you got a bit of a ride. And trying to get out a bit against the current was a bit tough.
After 15 minutes or so I decided I’d had enough exercise and I wasn’t going to see anything. So I was heading back in. But, fate intervened and I decided to have one more look and headed over to where someone was snorkeling to see if they could see anything. But no. Nothing. But then, some motion. It’s a sea turtle! And since the water is only about 4 feet deep, I got a good look at him (or her, it didn’t specify its pronouns). I followed it around for a bit until it started heading towards where the current was getting stronger and I decided I’d seen enough. Some other folks ended up seeing 3 or 4 later but I was happy with my discovery.
Marion decided to do the water stretch/exercise they were doing. While she was doing that, I decided to head down a path I saw that someone said went to the other side of the island (and it did). There were a group of ‘french-types’ kite boarding. And there was plenty of wind for it. I ran into TK (our friend from Alabama) who told me there was a path you could take up the hill to a lookout. So I gave that a try.
It started off fairly easy and had a good view of the bay and the nearby islands. That would have been a good place to stop but I didn’t know that yet. It got steeper and rockier. At one point becoming just rocks to climb on. But I was committed by then. I made it to the top without too much trouble. The view was basically the same as a third of the way up. But nice nonetheless. There was cactus up there. That seemed odd.
As I started to come down I was hearing a flapping. And looked down to discover that the sole of one of my water shoes had become detached from the shoe. Just hanging on by the front. That complicated things a bit, trying to keep it flat so I wouldn’t tear it off. I made it back down safely and shuffled my way back to where we were sitting. Marion was out in the water so I went out too. That was very refreshing after hiking up the hill.
As we were out there, the zodiac came for some of the bikini girls. But for some reason, maybe as Marion suggested, their motor couldn’t lift up like our ship’s could, they stopped a bit offshore. So the kids had to swim out to them and then heft themselves over the side. Which was not easy at all. Definitely not something us 60+ year olds were going to do. The kids already in the boat helped to pull them in. It was like landing tuna. It was pretty funny to watch.
We headed back to the ship for lunch. Just a few of us on the zodiac. A bit choppier and rougher on the way back and we got a little bit of spray but not much. The ship photographer was on board with us and was having to shield her camera. She needed a dry bag.
After lunch, a short rest and I figured why not go back to the island and try to get some pictures with my actual camera. So I did. It was a lot easier without hauling a towel and snorkel gear. Just my camera in a dry bag in the backpack. I had to switch to flip flops due to the water shoe failure.
I ran into Josh, the coral guy, when I landed as he and his wife were heading back. I asked him if he had seen anything good. And he said ‘oh yeah, lots of stuff’. What? They had gone over to the other side of the island where apparently there was coral reef galore. Well, what the fuck? Why didn’t anyone tell us that? He did say the water was a lot rougher than the side we were on, and it was rough enough there. So they probably didn’t want us oldsters going over there. But I would have liked the opportunity. When I was coming back, a couple got on and said they had been ‘bad’ and swum past the point towards the other side and described it as a door opening up to a beautiful forest – fish galore, coral and what not. But hey, I saw a sea turtle and I am happy with that (well, a little grumpy, but mostly happy).
I had a constant sense on this trip that I missed out on something better. To some degree, that’s just my personality. And to some degree, it’s the natural result of having a choice of excursions. But that’s not to say it wasn’t true sometimes.
There wasn’t a lot of beach to wander. I headed over to the other side. Once again seeing a couple of good sized lizards (6 inches or so) on the way, but the little buggers were too quick for me. I spent a little time photographing the kite-boarders. I considered climbing part way up the hill again, but the first part was a little tricky, and flip flops were the wrong footwear, so I didn’t.
Heading back, I saw the telltale sign of ‘something interesting’. 4 or 5 folks standing around pointing their phones at something. It turned out to be the iguana we had seen earlier. And two of his friends. A smaller one of the same type. And a different variety (green). I got some good pictures of them.
There wasn’t much else to see, so when a zodiac turned up, I headed back.
Tonight is the last talk from Josh the coral guy. Although this time he was talking about evolution and how new species are identified. A really interesting talk. He’s such a better presenter than the other guy too. He showed a fascinating graphic of the arms of 4 different species (human, cat, bat, dolphin) and showed how all had the same basic components (ulna, radii, etc.) but how each ‘implemented’ them in entirely different ways. Really fascinating.
He also had a great graphic showing the evolutionary tree of pretty much everything from the first organisms to the current ones. The amount of work that must have gone into producing it was staggering. Have a look: Tree of Life Explorer.
The talk finished before sunset (for the first time) so I hightailed it to the back of the ship (a new location I had recently discovered) to see if it amounted to anything. In the end, it didn’t do much. But the camera and especially the phone embellished it somewhat. Marion went to see the ‘Amazonia’ show in the lounge, so she didn’t have to stand around waiting for me. I caught the last dance number. It looked pretty impressive. Skimpy Brazilian outfits. I was going to take a picture but since I was sitting by myself, I thought it might seem a little creepy.
We were going to go see the documentary on ‘the true story of pirates’ but it didn’t start until 9:15 and we were tired. But, it turns out it’s on the TV and you can stream it. So we didn’t have to wait and we could watch it in our PJs. And good thing too because about 10 minutes into it we were both pretty much asleep and turned it off.
Tomorrow we are on separate excursions. I’m doing the all-day ‘drive around Grenada’ tour. And Marion is touring the ‘Tea House’
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