I think it actually turned out to be my very favourite night of the tour! We met up with another Gap group around 2pm, and together we sailed into the sunset, quite literally. The music was great, the drinks were free and flowing, and the pineapple was plentiful. We took turns sitting on the mesh nets in the middle of the boat getting hit by the waves (I guess it's a testament to how much my brain was trying to take in that I was genuinely surprised when I got splashed) chugging Imperials (beer) and some sort of rum and punch concoction and taking silly pictures.
Maybe an hour or two in, we stopped in a shallow bay to do some snorkeling. Again we were lucky, apparently there are usually two or three boats there but today we were the only ones, so we had lots of room to spread out. I can't say how much I love snorkeling. What a world down there. As soon as we put our heads under, we were surrounded by a school of hundreds of bright blue and yellow fish. It's proving to be a bit hard to match up what I remember to different species, but if I ever do I'll post up a separate entry. There were definitely angel fish though, and I also saw a starfish.
Greg and I stuck together most of the time, diving down to check out cool things on the bottom, making sounds and gestures to get each other's attention, and following some of the more unusual seeming fish around and around. We could have stayed there forever, no question about it. Definitely another one of those stepping out of yourself moments where nothing else matters because we're a part of this great planet. Or maybe just part of a school of fish. And then...to top it all off a rainbow appeared when we broke the surface. A full rainbow. I nearly started to cry. Instead I flippered myself off to the boat as fast as I could yelling for someone to take the camera out of my bag. Lee obliged, and thus, we have a rainbow shot!
When we got called back to the boat in about 40 minutes, Greg, Matt and I we were some of the last ones to get back on board. Adam had been back on the boat for a while, maybe through some combination of being slightly drunk, and not used to snorkeling, he couldn't quite get the hang of his snorkel.
The crew served us a great buffet dinner, put more drinks into our hands, and cranked up the music. We watched the sun set, and danced like crazy in a big groups, making the crew join in with us. Really as corny as it sounds, what it came down to was just being together, feeling all the good vibes, and feeling incredibly lucky and privileged to be where we were, sharing a once in a lifetime experience with the most amazing people. I guess words can't do it justice.Back at the hotel around 6:00 (the sun sets really early, and really quickly in Costa Rica), we all jumped into the swimming pool before we remembered that we had to prepare for the scheduled power outage that was supposed to happen from 7-10. Manuel Antonio's in a bit of a power/water difficulty just now so they shut things down for a while. Before the lights went out though, Neil, Suzanne, Laura, Matt, Greg, Adam and I filmed what is going to be the most awesome bit of footage from the trip: the Costa Rican Shower Game!!!
Neil had had this brilliant idea at breakfast a couple of days earlier, comparing the unpredictable temperatures of our Costa Ricans shower to some sort of gameshow of luck and randomness. So of course we had to film it, and the result is PURE AWESOME! Seriously. I'll definitely be linking to it once it's online.
The power went out on schedule, and most of the group went out to find a restaurant that was actually open. We ended the day by playing Pit in the candlelight and looking up at the gorgeous stars, clear in the darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment