Mark relaxing while Christian searches for dolphins
Three beautiful girls Cassi, Jessi, and Avery
Martha and Mark enjoying an Imperial Cerveza
November 23, 2007
It is about 9:00 AM on Friday and no one is stirring except the usuals: Mark and Martha and me. The maid, Mariela, is scurrying about as is Gilbert, the pool and yard guy, but otherwise all is quiet. A good time to blog.
Yesterday we took an afternoon cruise out into the ocean in search of dolphins. When we arrived at the marina, the “cruise manager” pointed out our boat and I thought he was kidding. “Ha, ha, only kidding, your yacht is just over there.” But no. It was about a twenty-foot long pontoon boat. Everyone leapt aboard and then our two able crew, Christian and Christopher (honest), helped the old lady (me) onto the boat. I’ve never been on a pontoon boat before. This one had a trampoline-like net in the middle. Maybe they all do. They managed with effort to ensconce me on one of the side seats and it was then that I decided not to move for the whole day lest I end up in the drink. It is not easy to move around on such a vessel, although the young’uns had no problem and C and C were jumping around like monkeys from fore to aft. I knew we were having dinner on the boat and then watching the sunset, but I’m thinking where is the galley and more important, the potty which they promised would be on the boat. Picture a pontoon boat with its two side “pontoons”, each about two feet wide, with netting in the middle, a mast with collapsed sails down the center and narrow hard seats on either side with nothing but sea below, like, right below your feet. With each slosh your butt gets wetter and wetter. We also had been told that the boat would have a cover, but none was evident. Somehow I was expecting something a little more luxurious. And besides, where is the food going to come from? Don’t tell me there is a cooler full of Costa Rican sandwiches! They did offer us a beer right off the bat, so that kept hope alive.
After a while we adjusted and lying down on the netting proved more comfortable than sitting on the hard seats and even I was able to move about a little. The kids were up front doing what kids do--giggling and speaking in tongues. We sped under motor for about thirty minutes, while Christian searched the sea for evidence of dolphins. Then he put the sails up and we sailed until land was barely visible behind us.
Finally, he pointed excitedly, and then told us that the circling birds, brown boobies to be exact, meant that the dolphins were chasing fish to the surface and soon we would see them. And sure enough, after speeding to where the boobies were we soon were in the middle of a school of dolphins, some just below the surface and some leaping into the air. None came up to the boat though, and none stuck their heads above water and smiled like they did in Hawaii. We did see some young ones with their mothers and Christian gave us an education as to how the mothers feed their babies, since they are mammals not fish, but they have no boobies (not the birds, the other kind). As best I could understand it, they have a hole or pouch in their stomach which the babies can penetrate and then a bubble of food spews into the baby’s mouth. Or something like that. I’ll have to look it up.
After the dolphins we headed back toward land and they took us to an area where the kids and parents could scuba and swim. Needless to say, Tom and I skipped that part. While the group was swimming, Christopher went “below” to figure out the food. I had by now, abandoned the idea of not moving and had managed to use the bathroom which was on the port side of the ship and involved jumping down into the “hole” where a small but completely serviceable little WC was located. C and C had stowed our stuff down there but otherwise there was no room for anything else. On the starboard side, they were preparing food and they actually had a grill which they fired up and began cooking fish kebabs—marlin, alternated with pineapple, onion and green peppers. By the time the swimmers were re-boarding dinner was served: kebabs, pasta salad and the fabulous Costa Rican fruit that we have been enjoying since we got here. The pineapple is better than any I’ve had anywhere. The dinner was delicious and we complemented our chefs profusely.
Because the day was cloudy, the sunset was not spectacular, but still, it was a lovely sight to watch daylight fade into dusk as we made our way back to the pier. When we got home it was only about 6:15 so we spent the evening sitting by the pool. David, Kelly and Mark got antsy about 8:00 and decided to go into town and check out the club scene, but the rest of us were content to stay home.
All in all, the pontoon experience was yet another one that I could check off as having done it and it was really a lot of fun. Anyone can sail around on a yacht! It takes an adventuresome spirit and a willingness to just go for it to do what we did and live to tell the story. Now if I can just survive the zip-lining on Saturday….
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