I realized I didn’t write about yesterday at all. We took a two hour kayak out to Middle Cay. The island is largely a research base and houses cute Brit’s that are studying the rays and sharks. I got a chance to snorkel with Karm. Karm is one of three guides; he’s amazing to watch under the water. He has a head full of the longest, neatest dreadlocks I have ever seen. Under the water, skinny in his wetsuit, his dreads float around majestically. Like Ursula underwater. I swam alongside a few barracuda. We spotted a nurse shark tucked under a rock. The shark stayed in hiding and that was quite alright with me. I saw a lobster that was my same size. We kayak sailed back to base over shallow water that housed sting rays few feet. Beautiful. Then a few of us sat around playing cards after dinner, the likely reason I didn’t feel like writing.
I got to taste coconut water and munched on raw coconut. After a hard battle, Ed and Mike cracked the nut open and we all got to see the monkey face under the husk.
It’s hard to keep writing when the time is standing still and blazing past. There aren’t defining events to our days on the island. One day rolls into the next … I feel like I am lacking in observation. I’ve got a sufficient amount of hammock time logged. But I have to say I am disappointed with the hammocks here. Instead of giving way and hugging your butt, the middle remains tight and the leisure activity becomes a balancing act.
Everyone else is burned and I feel like I am losing the race somehow. I need to crisp up tomorrow. Need some battle wounds to show off when I finally make it home. So far my limbs are toasted, not fried and my center is still white girl white. Maybe tomorrow I’ll dive without the rash guard. Why am I wishing for skin cancer?? I’m dumb.
This morning a group of us went fishing. I think it was my favorite thing on the trip so far. Weird, right, for a vegetarian? I caught a lot of large snapper, grouper and grunts. The whole boat was pulling them in minute after minute. It was beautiful to be further out on the water and luckily I brought my camera on board. Two of us even managed to pull in two huge barracudas. Using another fish we pulled on board, our driver filleted the meat into little tendrils for bait. Dragged behind a slow moving boat, the fillets look like jellyfish skimming along the water. Perfect for a barracuda dinner. I’m glad I saw those teeth up close the day AFTER I was swimming with them. I loved the opportunity to be out with just a couple of my travel mates. It’s a different dynamic than the full group. For that reason, I hung back again today in the afternoon.
I still haven’t made up my mind about this kind of travel … I think for the most part I don’t like playing by someone else’s rules. Still this place is amazing. The accommodations are unreal, the food outstanding, and the company is pleasant enough. I would still stay another week if I could. Being here alone (ok, with people but not with my people) does make me a little homesick for the laughter of my friends. It makes me ache to be sharing this with someone. I wish I had another person that could brew up this beautiful place again in rendezvous. I yearn for normal conversation, conversations about nothing instead of getting to know you conversations that say nothing about people. It’s funny that the real world doesn’t exist for us. Time is only told by the meal setting and the sun’s arch. Movies, politics, and work don’t get talked about here. Maybe for the better. We don’t have a clue to what is happening in the US right now. The island has a radio to the mainland that they use twice a day for weather reports, or in the off chance of an emergency. Who knows what’s going on out there?
The wind is ripping through my tent … I feel like I may take flight.
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