It Was Bound to Happen...

It is legal here to ride in the back of a pick up truck. We loaded three kayaks into the back of the truck plus me! We were heading to Barbary Beach to kayak and snorkel for the day. As we were driving, I was staring at all of the trees that had been destroyed and burned in wildfires. It was funny because I swore I could still smell the soot. Turns out, that smokey fire smell was actually the car engine and after traveling about 10 miles down the road, the car quit on us. Basil (Mary's husband) came to tow us back, which went fine until the tow rope snapped in half. It wasn't exactly the start to the morning we were hoping for.

We came back to the house and decided to kayak about a mile off shore to a brain coral reef. While I wish I had an underwater camera to take pictures with, it still would not do it justice. (So I just inserted internet pictures below that look like what we saw). We saw hundreds of parrot fish, rainbow fish, butterfly fish, angelfish and fish that were straight out of the movie finding nemo. Naturally, I spent my time talking to the fish through my snorkel and telling them how cute they were while singing "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

The reef itself was filled with all types of coral. There were huge patches of bright yellow fire coral that would leave an extremely itchy rash if you bumped up against it. There was brain coral that was too big to wrap your arms around. We would swim over a reef and just lay still and watch the fish slowly emerge from their hiding places amongst the coral.  It seemed the longer you floated there, more and more layers of fish would emerge.

Snorkeling can make you sea sick, apparently. Snorkeling also is the perfect way to get a ridiculous sunburn on your back. Riding in a kayak with Steve paddling a mile back to shore through the waves is also another great way to continue to get sea sick and continue to get a sunburn. Our host Mary has a remedy for sunburns where you soak paper towels in tea and then place them over the burn for 10 minutes. She thinks that the tannic acid helps with the burn. We'll see how well this turns out...