We woke up today with the intention of making breakfast at our apartment, getting ready, and heading to the beach for a half-day before our 2:30 dive date. Nathan was putzing around our little kitchen, making breakfast and coffee, and I was slyly messaging Airbnb support. Turns out, there’s only so much personal growth that one can do before it gets too uncomfortable. Marlon at Airbnb had my back and worked with our host to get us into the next-door unit with AC. Whew. You know that feeling where the heavy dread is lifted off your shoulders and you can smile again? That was us, today.
I don’t want you to think I’m high maintenance. I’m medium maintenance. I know that I need certain things, like AC, but I know me, so I’ll tell you upfront what I need. I was never trying to go without. The listing said AC and I never dreamed I had to specify. I’ll pay more! I know needing a bug-free, chilled environment for sleeping is my personal hang-up. Anyway, we got it worked out, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
With a smile on our face and hard-boiled eggs in our belly, we walked by the dive shop, walked to the ATM, freshly refilled this Monday morning, hallelujah, and headed back to Princess Margaret beach.
We set up our tent on the close and busy side and played in the much calmer water. Next to our tent, Fay has a little beach bar where she sells drinks, rents chairs, sells T-shirts and beaded necklaces, and braids hair.
Now, I have fine, wavy hair. In humidity, it’s pretty much game over, thanks for playing. Also, I just got it cut, so the back is shorter, and while I can get it in a little pony, it’s basically an exercise in losing rubber bands. So I walked over to Fay, half-joking, and asked if she could do anything with this mess. She said she could plait the hair, just the front half of my head, for 40 EC. If you’re playing at home, that’s nearly 15 USD. It would take 20 minutes.
We played in the water, snorkeled, and had our packed lunch. At 1:10 I decided to bite the bullet and have Fay braid my hair.
It being Island time and all, it took a smidge longer than the 20 minutes she had initially quoted. So Nathan picked up our beach tent and all our junk while Fay worked on me. When we were done, we hustled to the dive shop.
Turns out, we weren’t late at all (island time!), and we just needed to try on BCD’s, dive fins, and a wet suit, hop in the boat, and away we go.
Max was our guide and helped us suit up, get in the water and descend, which, for us, is the hardest part. Hyperventilating at the surface is gonna be the thing we need to overcome. Ok, I mean it’s what I’ll need to overcome, whatever.
We had been talking with the dive shop owner about us being newbies, and maybe we wanted to start slow, with a nice shallow dive, and somehow at the end, Max said we did 59 feet. I don’t even think that is possible.
Now’s about the time when I should mention that Nathan gave himself a mask squeeze, and has petechial hemorrhaging around both eyes. Tomorrow might look worse, but I swear I didn’t do it!
After the dive, we walked home and the housekeeping staff had moved all our stuff to the new unit. Totally, unnecessary, but also totally appreciated. Pretty much everything was put in the same place in the new unit. The only thing we changed was on the bedside tables, because the units are mirror images, our ‘sides’ had changed.
We showered, got ready, and headed into town for eggs and dinner.
