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A place in the sun

Written by Carissa Wright — Summer Arg

Thursday, 25 May 2006

The car was in long-term parking at Sea-Tac airport by 5:30 a.m., but the ungodliness of the hour paid off when, by 3 p.m. that same day, I was lying on a sandy beach in Puerto Vallarta, margarita firmly in hand. The towels were deep blue, the margarita was cold and the sun was hot. Paradise. Two rock outcroppings reached out into the bay to enclose the stretch of sand in front of my hotel. On one, a white tent shielded four massage tables, two of which were occupied by blissfully relaxed hotel patrons. The clear blue sky and the slate-blue water met at the horizon, and the two green-brown ends of the Bay of Banderas curved around to the north and south. The sun and humidity beat down, and when both became too much for my Pacific Northwest-adjusted body, I retreated to the shade of a palm-thatched hut. When lying around got boring, I jumped into the salty waters of the bay and let the waves pull me toward shore. Vendors on the beach sold wrap dresses, jewelry, hair braids, hammocks, carved wooden statues, ice cream, fresh fruit and anything else they could carry. Calls of “Braids, amiga?” and “Dresses? Necklace? Bracelet?” intruded on my peace, but with a simple “No, gracias” from me, they would move on. I was in Mexico for one week with my parents and best friend. Though a good portion of the trip was spent in much the same way as that first afternoon, a few enticing adventures were able to pull me away from the equally tempting trashy book and beach towel. Three days after our arrival, not sunburned yet but definitely wiped out by the constant heat, we bought tickets on a catamaran heading out to the Marietas Islands, about two hours from the Puerto Vallarta marina. The Marietas, the guide aboard the ship informed us, are one of only two places on earth the blue-footed booby can be found in the wild. The Galapagos Islands of Darwinian fame are the only other home to the gull-like bird. Reaching our destination after two hours of cruising, we circled the islands in search of a place to drop anchor. It took careful examination of the bird-covered islands to spot the boobies’ distinctive powder-blue webbed feet, but spot them we did. Satisfying one objective of the excursion, we shifted our sights to the next. I’ve been snorkeling before. The last time I was in Mexico some five or six years ago, I actually learned how to scuba dive in addition to sticking my face in the water and breathing through a tube. (Come to think of it, scuba’s not much more than that either.) But it had been a while, and when the time came to trust the little plastic pipe with my essential oxygen intake, my body took a little convincing. Breathing hard and fast, I couldn’t keep my face under for more than a minute or two before I had to surface. Diving was out of the question. My dad noticed my plight, and the next time I surfaced he told me to stop trying to put my face in, and just breathe for a second. My head out of the water, I breathed through the (by then rather salty) mouthpiece. I felt my breathing slow back under my control, and gave my dad the OK. Swimmers Underwater again, but this time looking at the world in front of me, I started noticing things. The sound filling my ears was a constant clicking – thousands of tiny mouths chomping on tinier prey. The guide dove underneath me and surfaced with a blue spotted puffer fish held loosely in his hands. It inflated at the intrusion, and when the guide released it, the fish struggled to swim for the bottom: It couldn’t dive until the air in its body was released. I swam in silence, away from the rest of the group. Snorkeling in a group, incidentally, is not much fun. Fins fly and hit those following too closely in the face, a single diving swimmer will invariably come up for air directly underneath another swimmer, and the bubbles from an over-enthusiastic kicker make it hard to see. I came across a school of fish gathered around an outcropping of coral-covered rock. They were as long as my arm, and had bright yellow tails that contrasted sharply with their dark green or grey bodies. My dad had seen them too, and said they were probably yellow-tailed snappers. I followed the school on its aimless journey until I realized that the rest of the group had returned to the boat. The day’s next adventure began as soon as I returned to the boat. The snorkeling adventure, imperatively a sober one, had ended, but the boat’s open bar on the two-hour cruise back had just begun. Add as favorites (103) | Views: 2226 Be first to comment this article Write Comment Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code. Name: Title: Comment: