Friday, November 12, 2010

The Time We Went Snorkeling, Part II


After an hour-long boat ride, we finally arrived at the Santa Maria Cove where we would snorkel. The location was gorgeous, but as we strapped on our flippers and pulled on our masks, I began to grow very nervous. Clearly there were going to be a lot of fish in the water, which is something you're supposed to want on a guided snorkeling tour. But the idea of fish being all around me wasn't a relaxing and serene thought in my mind. I wanted to see them, but I wanted them to not invade my personal space. To the contrary, Ty was not nervous in the least considering he's practically a merman.

As our boat pulled into the cove, I looked down into the water and saw a large, dark object moving near the boat, which kicked my freak out up a notch. I didn't know there were going to be sting rays in the water I was about to voluntarily jump into. The entire life of the Crocodile Hunter flashed before my eyes, and I knew I didn't want to go down like that.

What I didn't know at this moment was that the large, dark object near the boat was actually a rock, and it wasn't moving ... the boat was. Thinking it was a sting ray, I still agreed to get in the water if Ty jumped in first and we didn't go near the other side of the boat where I had spotted the ray.

Ty jumped in and I apprehensively followed. Less than a minute later, Ty tells me his flipper has broken and he has to go back to the boat. I felt like he was leaving me for dead, but I took deep breaths and watched him climb up the boat's ladder to get a new flipper.

This was taking longer than I thought and my breathing began to grow more and more shallow. Then, at the moment when I realized I couldn't take it much longer, one of the guides swims next to me and squirts a liquid in the water that creates a tropical fish feeding frenzy all around me.

This was it. I was going to die in a freak honeymoon snorkeling incident.

I managed to get Ty's attention on the boat and mouth to him, "Hurry up, I'm freaking out!" To a merman, this is ridiculous. But to a husband who can only imagine the life or death scenario his wife is creating in her head, he knows he must quickly get back in the water.

For the rest of our snorkeling adventure, Ty held my hand and kept the guy squirting the fish crack cocaine away from me. He's a mighty good merman!

2 comments:

Mandy S said...

for the record...i have just as much swimming hours logged as Ty, and I WOULD HAVE FREAKED a bit, too!! open water with fish and who knows else what swimming around me freaks me out!! and ALSO for the record, i was ALWAYS secretly afraid of swimming over drains in swimming pools. you never know what could be hiding in those, right?!

Stephanie Jordan said...

I'm relieved to hear this, Mandy. Now, I feel like more of a member of this family than ever before! The bottom drains don't really bother me, but I don't like the side drains (or whatever they're called). I always think there's a snake hiding in there.