This was an epic snorkel.
Maho Bay is always good for two
reasons. The beach is adjacent the
parking and the snorkeling is always decent. There is also a healthy amount of sea-grass around, so you
always have a chance of a turtle sighting. Well folks, the good grass must be growing right now because
it was turtle-mania out there. One
turtle two turtle three turtle NINE!
They were practically rolling in packs. 3 big fat faced green turtles, the cows of the Caribbean,
with there soulfully big eyes staring back at you. Some smaller guys, stuffing their faces trying to beef
up. And interspersed with the
turtles . . . rays. I saw a family
of 3, all the size of the top of a coffee-table, cruising the grass strip. You know, just putting in an
appearance.
The real gems, as always, were
much harder to spot. Octopi. You may recall that finding an octopus,
in my family, is the equivalent of the pubescent warrior being sent out on the
plains alone, only to return with the head of a lion in his hands. Ok, maybe not quite that dramatic . . .
but its big. These screwball
animals can be pretty much any color or shape, and they spend most of their
time making hiding places. This
hiding actually becomes their undoing (to being spotted by me at least),
because there are certain characteristics (empty shells near the entrance to a
hole/cave/indention) that draw me to investigate certain crevices more
thoroughly (why do I think this line is going to be quoted back to me in the
comments?) And, low and behold, I
found not one, but two verified octopi. The first of which had what I would consider a deluxe
hidey-hole, complete with a huge conch playing body-guard just to the side of a
sizable cave on the ocean floor (sizable for an octopus mind you). It’s like I killed a whole FAMILY of
lions. Wait, that doesn’t feel
right. Um . . . it was awesomeface
sandwich, lets leave it at that.
The conch (and more specifically
their shells) were one of the coolest parts of the snorkel. Usually you see one or two of these
shells (sometimes with conch inside, sometimes not) along the sea-bed. But today, they were everywhere. And they were all inhabited. And it seemed that some conch somewhere gave the retreat
sign, cause these conch were absolutely trucking it alone the sand. Now, since a conch is essentially a
huge snail in a shell, you must wonder what “trucking it” looks like. Here ya go. To move, the conch sticks itself out of the bottom of the
shell similar to the gondolas in italy.
But, because of their clunky shape and lack of real steering, it just
kind of pops them up haphazardly like a popcorn kernel popping or, even more
accurately, like a person imitating a whale breaching. So, a bunch of conch trucking looks
like a seabed of gorgeous shells popping like its hot in a semi-consistent
direction. Pretty surreal and
beautiful.
It was, by almost any standard, a
great snorkel. As we toweled off
and moved to avoid the asshats’ cigarette smoke coming from next to us, our
smiles were hard to contain. If we
hadn’t seen any more animals for the rest of the day, it would have still been
amazing. As it turns out, this
right here was the perfect amount of animals. But there were more.
We saw some deer on the drive
home. No biggie. I mean, kind of a biggie as deer are
native to the island and have no real predators here, but it was a small and
cute little deer and while it didn’t move to avoid my car, it didn’t run at it
either.
Understandably, when we got home
we were exhausted. Mmf went to nap
in the bedroom and I took my book out to the hammock. My hammock. The mattock. It is, bar none, my favorite place in the entire world. Not today though.
I fell asleep in the hammock per
usual. I had pretty much done that
on purpose. Because it was heading
toward dust, I also lay a towel over me, with only my next and head exposed. When I awoke, it felt like carpenter
ants had just set up shop inside my body.
My back was on fire. Freaking fire. And my neck scratched horribly. I ran to mmf in the bedroom.
“I got bit. I’m pretty sure I got
bit bad.” Initially she
giggled. I’m funny, its
understandable. But when I turned
to show her my back, the laughing stopped and the gasping started. It looked like about 15 different
relief maps of Hawaii had been built across my entire back. Apparently, bugs can bite through hammock.
Noted. They also had taken
the easy way and chomped at my jaw and neck. I was a fire ant.
I just wanted to take a bath in cortisone cream. I settled for a burning hot
shower. Which helped. A little. I think I
blacked out after that.
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