I woke up late today, and Nathan wasn’t in our room. He had told me that he was gonna get up early to do something, but I forgot what. So I just readied myself until he came back, dripping wet. Paddleboarding, that’s what it was.
We both showered (If you only knew how rare this is) and Nathan made our eggs and toast, and made the coffee. What did I do? Probably nothing. No, I spooned the salt in our eggs. That’s what I did.
We ate our breakfast, polished off the jam, threw our dirty plates in the sink, and took our coffee up to the communal deck. I read and enjoyed the view, and Nathan mostly just looked out at the sea. The whole time, we were serenaded by the local macaws, who’s ‘song’ can best be described as angry screaming.
A day or two ago, we had asked our hotelier to pick up a few items at the grocery store. I sorta feel like he might have forgotten, and not wishing to ask again, we had to take matters into our own hands. So, I did what anyone would do. I WhatsApp’d the local bakery to see if we could pick up some hamburger-style buns for sandwiches.
They said the buns would be ready at 10:30 or 11, and not knowing if that was American time or Island time, we gathered up what we needed for a walk to West End.
Now, I like to think I learn from my mistakes, so today I wore (deodorant), my new swim top, clean underpants(!) and a swim skirt with the water shoes. The surf was less today, but the skirt still got splashed. Very smart indeed.
We walked the main drag, walking into each bodega looking for bug spray. I could write a whole chapter on the inexplicable experience, but it was oddly hard to find anything with a decent % of deet. We hit the ATM again, and by now it was 10:40. So we presented ourselves at Sandy Buns, to see if our buns were ready. They were, so we paid, arranged to buy a multigrain loaf tomorrow, and left.
We walked back to Turtle Beach, donned our suits, and got ready for the beach. While Nathan was in a state of undress, Rosa, our housekeeper stopped by. We chatted with her about tomorrow’s dinner, and she took my stretched-out/too big suit bottoms to see if she could take them in a bit.
We spent the rest of our sunny morning reading at the palapa. At one or so, I headed back to our room to ditch some stuff and get ready for diving.
I met Denzel at the dock and blew his mind with how long we’ve been married and how long we’ve been together. I always follow up with a ‘we’re older than we look’.
The other Colorado couple at Turtle Dive is from Pinewood Springs. They were on the dive today. The wife has been diving for a while, but the husband, Curt, just learned on this trip. They have a guide, Alessandro, all to their selves. Ausra pretended to take Denzel from me, but I fought her off. Not funny lady!
The dive was pretty deep, and unlike the previous dives, this was in a swift-moving drift. We saw several turtles, tiny furry crab (Nathan’s description), grouper, snappers, and all kinds of other stuff. It rained while we were under the surface of the water, and we surfaced far from our dive boat (like really far). Denzel and Alessandro had their sausages inflated (insert childish chuckle here), but our boat captain could not see us. Finally, a dive boat sputtered by, and Denzel told them to let our captain know we were over there.
Once we got picked up and deposited to dry land, we showered again (a first!), and brought a cocktail to the outdoor kitchen area.
Actually, I should take a moment to say that Nathan found a dive computer on today’s dive. We just bought ourselves dive computers before this trip, so we didn’t need or want it. And Denzel has been borrowing a dive computer from the shop and needs to buy himself one. So Nathan gave it to him. There’s some local protocol for lost and found stuff in the dive community here, but we hope he gets to keep it.
Now, we’re at dinner in West End, trying not to strangle the ugly American at the next table, who’s dropping F bombs every other word and nearly walked out before his dinner arrived. Island time dude. Chill.
