Shark pen != diving platform
I think I finally got nine hours of sleep. Unfortunately I was still
dead sleepy all day. I even took a short nap once we’d finally gotten
to the beach resort.
On the boat transfer to the beach resort, one of the locals made a
joke about sharks. I was amused, since I’d made a similar joke when I
was whinging about my period the day before. Once we’d kayaked around
the island, we were looking for things to do, so I said we could go
over and swim off the diving platform. Death thought I was serious,
and we headed over. I only stopped when it was time to struggle out of
the kayak onto the platform. At dinner, someone’s comment about sharks
made me ask, “Are there sharks in the middle of the diving platform?”
The other guests looked at me, and laughed. It wasn’t a diving
platform, it was a shark pen.
The limestone formations around the island are interesting, but Death
didn’t realize how fast he was paddling, so we cruised by them rather
quickly. Also, there were no dry bags for his camera, so his keen eye
for aesthetics wasn’t motivated. I was sad I couldn’t instruct Death
in the finer points of kayaking, but the equipment wasn’t as nice or
as feature-full as the equipment I’d used in New Zealand, and Death
seemed more inclined to power through the stroke rather than finesse
it anyway.
The tide was coming in as we went around the island, so that one
channel through the island was rocky the first time around, but barely
passable the second time, so we did a miniloop for fun. Death’s GPS
worked nicely, and our track was plainly visible on his Treo.
Dinner was “a barbeque on the beach.” At this resort, this meant a
twelve course meal with an opening cocktail, possibly a Singapore
Sling. (Fruity, but with gin?!) My stomach was acting up, so though I
ate more than I expected, I skipped a lot of the meat, including what
might have been a shark fin.