Today we had an 8 am date at the dive shop. We were supposed to meet with Denisse to chat about diving during our trip and potentially book some diving. When we arrived, Denzel helped us out with the paperwork, fit us for BCDs, and jotted our pertinent details down. When Denisse arrived, I told her about our last diving experience in Bequia, and that it’s been 2 years since we last dove, and that I was a little timid. She listened to our concerns and said if we wanted to go out alone, just with Denzel, we could do that today.
So we ran home to get our suits on, grab masks and fins, and run back to the shop. During the time we were gone, they got our BCDs ready, and loaded up the boat with our stuff.
We all hopped in the boat, and off we were on the 3-minute boat ride to the dive site. Denzel walked us through a few underwater hand signs and helped us get ready and put our BCDs on. We did a reverse roll off the boat to get in the water, and then with regulators in, we descended with the rope.
Or, that was the way it was supposed to be. A few ‘I’m scared’s later, and one false start, and I was descending. Denzel, bless his heart, held my hand for a few minutes to make sure I was settled. He tried to release me before I was ready, and I clutched him back for the first 20 minutes of the dive.
Once the dive was nearly over, I popped up to the surface a tad early, with the residual air in my BCD expanding to make me more buoyant. Denzel popped up with me, and at 54 minutes, I called it a day. Nathan stayed under for a few more minutes, and once he surfaced, we all jumped back on board the boat.
Denzel conducted a brief post mortem, helped us with the parts where we struggled and we were back at the dock in no time.
It was only 10 am or so, and we needed to figure out what to do with the rest of our day. We hung out under our papaya, never really made a concrete decision about what to do with ourselves, and before you know it we were stuck in a downpour.
Palapas are only so great in keeping you dry in a rainstorm, so as soon as we could, we made a break for our room.
Actually, we ran to our room to get the fixings to make coffee and then ran up to the empty studio apartment that has a phenomenal view. We spent the rainy afternoon, enjoying coffee, looking out at the weather.
The owners have said we can move in that unit until Tuesday or so, so right now we have our junk spread between the two apartments.
WordPress was giving me fits, hence the delayed post, so I spent the afternoon chatting with tech support in India. I finally got it all fixed up, but not before I wondered why I was stressing about this crap on vacation.
For dinner, we walked down to the farthest joint on West Bay, enjoyed a nice coconut shrimp (hers) and grilled octopus (his) dinner serenaded by live music that was two notches of the amplifier too loud. You win some, you lose some.