We woke up early after getting a good night’s sleep. Thank you, air conditioning! Kristen made oatmeal for breakfast, and I felt right at home Blog Cabin. We moseyed on down to the pier at 8:30 to be picked up by the dive shop.
After we dove, we took a dip in the pool. Ted, Ellie, Nick and I took full advantage of the swim-up bar. Ted and I ordered a banana daquiris, Ellie got a piña colada, and Nick ordered a club sandwich. Kristen didn’t want to get in (wimp), so I ordered her a margarita and swam it to her.
After I finished my drink, I went back to the room to make a sandwich of my own. I didn’t feel like putting on sunscreen before going back to the pool (it was after 2 pm), so I didn’t. Ted was kind enough to position an umbrella over my chair. The shade didn’t cover the whole thing, so I had to curl up in a little ball. I started feeling toasty after about an hour, so I headed back to the room. Yep, I was burnt. The damage had already been done. My tan lines were from the swimmer I wore diving. Since I don’t typically apply sunscreen before diving, I have to assume I got over sunned on the surface interval. I was in the shade, but I was on the dock. Next time I’ll bring sunscreen for in between or I’ll find a shady spot on the beach to sit.
After being in the sun, I lay down for a nap and crashed hard. When I woke up, I had just enough time to shower before dinner. We took the water taxi into town. The 15 minute straight-shot was much faster than renting a golf cart would be (vehicles aren’t permitted past the north bridge, so taking a cab from the resort isn’t an option).
We only had to walk about five blocks to get to El Patio, the restaurant I raved about in one of my prior posts. Of course that was all the distance Kristen needed to stub her toe on a hidden shell and gush blood all over her foot. A man selling his reggae CD started pitching a sale to us and Kristen asked him if he had any band-aids. He rushed her into a store. Cindy followed, not wanting poor Kristen to be alone. Apparently the reggae guy asked the store owner if he had a band-aid, to which he replied, “No man, I sell weed.” Kristen eventually got a band-aid and purchased the CD from the reggae guy for $5.
We made it to El Patio otherwise unscathed. I ordered the same meal I had last time—spicy coconut snapper fillet with coconut rice and garden salad with ranch dressing—and was slightly disappointed. Not that it was bad by any means, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Maybe my memory was just wrong. The meal was great, but what was bad was the ranch dressing. In my prior post, I said it was the best ranch dressing I’ve ever tasted ever in the whole entire world’s history of ranch dressing . . . or something along those lines. This time it was probably the worst ranch dressing I’ve ever tasted ever in the whole entire world’s history of bad ranch dressing. It was thick, super thick like the consistency of mayo, and didn’t have much flavor. And it was room tempurature. Blech. Oh well, I probably would have still picked the same side items if I didn’t have a preconceived notion of what was good.
After dinner we stopped at The Salty Dog souvenir store. I bought a new sachel purse ’cause I left mine at home. I’m really excited to use it when we go on a tour of the ruins. Nick got a t-shirt and a bell for Grandma, and we also bought some chocolate. After that we hurried back to the Coastal Xpress water taxi station and went home hotel.