Travel Update #11

Monday, Feb. 26

Slept like the dead last night. Woke up after 8am! Got a full 9 hours. We were supposed to go out for breakfast but we all woke up too late. So we picked up a bit of breakfast on the way to the snorkel boat with Zac for 10am.

Zac got things squared away on the boat and his boss, Mark, showed up with a few guests. Went over to pick up the rest of the cruise ship guests for the two-stop tour. First stop was Stingray City. Not at all what I expected, much, much cooler! As we pulled up in the boat to this sandbar area there were several other boats around. We got out and jumped into the water (little bit cold at first, honestly, what is wrong with me!). We warmed up fast and the stingrays swam around us with the bucket of squid enticing them. It was so cool! We spent about 30-45 min. there. I got to feed, hold (not too successfully), pet and kiss a whole bunch of the stingrays. At the end I did manage to hold a male stingray (much smaller than the female). So friggin’ cool.

From there just a few minutes away to a coral reef for some snorkelling. That was incredible! The water was fantastically blue and beautiful. Steph and I followed Zac over to an area with lots of fish. We even saw 2 moray eels! The first one kept poking his head out and the 2nd one actually came out swimming in the open. Wow. Zac took a couple of pictures of us from underneath and Steph took a couple of him blowing air bubbles. That was freaky.

Back to the yacht club to drop off the passengers and off for another late lunch, this time at Aqua Beach (or something like that). We had a nice time there except for these crazy birds that kept attacking us. One nearly flew into Zac’s hair and another nearly pecked Steph’s head. Crazy.

From there we did a few errands, picked up stuff for a wine/cheese night at home. After dropping that stuff off, we did the short walk to the beach. Zac brought his guitar and played and sang while Steph and I chatted and enjoyed the setting sun. It was perfect.

The sound of the ocean was hypnotic. Got off a couple of really nice shots, I hope.

Now we’re relaxing at home with some wine, hummus, pita, cheese. Going to watch Office Space (movie). This is the life. Note to self – find out how I can do this for a year.