Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Invasion of the Sea Kayaking Tourists!


On one of the early days in the trip, Paul and I went out in Sea Kayaks. Ah, the beauty of "All Inclusive" resorts is that all the stuff you get charged for at other places is already a foregone cost, so all of us used these fairly regularly during the week to explore the shoreline.

We paddled out around one of the nearby points, and I stopped to talk to a man who was out fishing the reef. Make a note of his “boat”.


You get a feel for the poverty that we saw outside of the resort area. That boat is actually half of a shipping container of some sort, and he is fishing with a spool of monofilament line without a pole. (ala The Old Man and the Sea) Although, the man in the Hemingway novella wasn’t using monofilament to catch Parrot fish.

One of the nice things about the island was that everyone spoke English, so there wasn’t the uncomfortable side of a language barrier when you talked with people outside of the resort. All the people I talked with were very friendly and outgoing.

Here are some of the caves worn into the cliffs by the waves.
My partner Paul. I must give him the award for being far and away more Adventurous than that Croc-hunter guy...



I tested out how waterproof my Olympus camera was by dunking it, and getting a shot of the sea urchins that were thriving near the surface. The camera survived and continued to produce some great shots for being a point-and-shoot style camera. For a small camera that is quite durable, waterproof to some reasonable depth without a housing, and from what I can tell bomb-proof so far (oops. I just jinxed it), I would highly recommend getting one. Well, if you don't say stuff that would jinx the equipment like I just did, I would highly recommend the camera.


When we made it back we got in trouble for going out and around the point. They couldn’t see us, and I suppose from a liability standpoint they were worried that we were going to get hurt or maybe there is a big problem with pirates raiding tourists in kayaks for their extra sunscreen, sunglasses, and dirty ball caps... Aaarrrgh May-tee!

The quote from the staff was something like "If something happened to you, it would be bad for us." I was thinking…BAD FOR YOU? WHAT ABOUT REALLY BAD FOR US???

It wasn’t that big a deal of course. The water was very calm and aside from getting sea urchin spines in our feet, we would make it to shore in the worst case scenario of something actually happening.


I thought it was funny that I got in trouble with the staff every time I went out in the kayaks. The complaints ranged from you went too far, you took too much time, we’re closing the water-sports area and we want our boat back…etc. They even sent the little motorboat out after Brenna and me. I am sure they were getting tired of the Mabry/Wiggins Adventure Seekers by the end of the week.



Look at how calm that water is in the last picture. It's like a lake out there, and that area is pretty well exposed to anything coming for about 900 miles north so it isn't like it's a real protected cove. It was just that nice and calm.

Later in the week, I wouldn’t have gone out in a kayak, but that is a subject for another post!

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