Sail Away

(February 4th, 2023)

Tyler continued to meditate on the beach every morning. Sand Pipers are also early risers. The early bird gets the sand fleas. 

We also had another visitor at breakfast. It is nice to see jumping spiders live all over the world. (Since they are the only cool spider.) Because my girls send me reels on instagram, I kept thinking, "Raymond, get it!"

Tyler had been trying to get a coconut water each day, but they only put out a certain amount and when they were gone, there weren't more until the next day. This morning, he got one early. Um...they look really cool, but I don't think they taste very good. 

This day was a water and sailing day. I planned to go on the paddle boards, but somehow when I sit down in a beach chair with a good book and sometimes a blended fruit punch, it is really hard to get up again. I watched the parasailers float by. That is one of the things I would really have liked to do. Tyler tried to set it up, but the weather didn't cooperate later in the week. But it can stay on my bucket list.

Several people learned how to sail and others tried wind surfing. You already know how I feel about salt water, so this wasn't high on my list. Tyler however, did pretty well. He was able to stay up but you are totally at the mercy of the wind. It seems like an unpredictable sport.

While I relaxed, people were busy all over. Janille and Jason got their hair braided. Janille just had one side done and Jason did all of his, about halfway back. It looked really cool. I think my hair is just too thin to braid like that. I'd get such a bad burn on my scalp.

The group had already done the night snorkel, but they went to the daytime one as well. (The day is free by the way, but the night costs money.) This is such a cool picture. 

In the afternoon, Captain Chase took us out on the sailboat. He had taken the class and was allowed to ferry people around. It was a fun jaunt out and back, but once again...if the wind dies down, what do you do? There are no paddles... (Maybe I'm just not very adventurous)

Here is a view from up above. You can see the pool that no one ever uses on the left. All the buildings are two story grouped rooms. There is row upon row of them and they all look the same. It is actually really easy to get turned around and lost. You have to memorize some landmarks to find your own room and then it is almost impossible to find someone else's. 

In the afternoon, we all took a couples massage class. It was really fun. They provided the oil and you got to learn some basic massage strokes to use on your partner. Funny story. Most of us women massaged first. It was much easier for the guys to take off their shirts. While I was massaging Tyler, I was trying to decide what I was going to do. I was wearing a swimsuit that didn't unstrap easily. I looked around and saw that several women not in our group just took off their shirts or slid their suits down to allow full access to their back. I told Tyler what they were doing and that I planned to do the same. I figured the ladies right around me in our group would do something similar as well. So when it was almost time to switch, I told Tyler that maybe he should leave his glasses off since he was about to be surrounded by topless women. He thought I was talking about the ladies who I mentioned before. He got a confused expression on his face and said "I think they'll put their tops back on..." Lol. 

When we left, we went over to see if the pickleball courts were available and since they were, we had another epic round of playing. Love these ladies!

We had reservations that evening for one of the fancier restaurants called 'Feathers.' Fancy means guys have to wear a collar shirt and closed toe shoes. Aric didn't actually bring a collar shirt, so he had to borrow one. But that wasn't too hard. Most people dressed up a little nicer. The girls all went over to Star's room because she does hair. She loves doing prom hair the most, so it was really fun for her to have so many gals to fancy up. 

Then we sort of took prom pictures in the jungle. The lighting was not great and Tyler and I looked old and creepy. Our best picture happened to be with Jason. 

The restaurant was fun, but the food was just okay. I think the overall experience was worth it since it was fun to be there with everyone and the company and conversation were super fun. Oh, and the table cloths and napkins were pink. I liked that. Sadly, there wasn't a table for 12, so we split up into two groups.

But we got back together after for a few more photos. Because why not?

I should mention that every evening the frogs would come out and sing to us. They were so loud! Many people thought it was birds making the noise, but I knew it was frogs and Chase managed to get a picture for me. They sounded like kids playing on a really squeaky swingset, just going back and forth, back and forth. Such an interesting sound for frogs to make.

Last picture of the evening. There was an empty vase in our room for several days and then suddenly a flower appeared in it. Just one. I've never seen anything like it? Can anyone identify it?