El Nido (Part Two)

The sky was overcast and needle rain fell in harmless intervals during most of our two and a half days in El Nido. Either the weather or a vain attempt to hide her noticeable-only-to-her two month pregnant belly kept Sami out of the water on our second, and more noteworthy snorkeling excursion.

We were joined on our day trip by a skinny young Englishman with bad teeth (clearly habitual smoking induced and in no way a stereotypical British hygiene jab), a young and worldly Dutch woman who used a British accent when addressing said Englishman, a fat and handsy Italian couple, a slim couple of undetermined origin, and a big Italian woman with a fancy underwater camera. (as a side note, we sometimes watch Kathy Lee and Hoda in the mornings, and not too long ago they mentioned a survey that showed the first thing women registered when seeing another woman for the first time was her weight. So based on my introduction of out shipmates, the moral of the story is I am a judgmental woman.)

The horny Italian couple wore custom flippers and facemasks which led me to believe that maybe they had a thing for fish voyerism. She wore bikini bottoms that left a large crescent of ass on both sides, and they stole off to steal kisses at every opportunity. I glided partnerless at a safe distance trying to find Nemo. When I pulled myself up onto the boat heavy and awkward with my fins, I was surprised to see the thin European woman topless. Sami later explained to me that it was smart of her to change into a dry top out of the water and shield herself from chills. I turned my head embarrassingly, and later wondered if some of this European modesty had rubbed off on my wife.

The snorkeling was incredible, despite the weather, but without a proper waterproof camera, the images are left fading in my memory. There was a secret beach we were led to through a cavernous opening in one of the countless floating limestone jungle mountains. What seemed like hundreds of snorkelers brought in from similar boats swam through and marveled at the natural wonder. The large group, which fought feverishly for real estate away from rocks and coral, took away from the serenity of the setting.

Later on we frog paddled to a similar setting that existed just fine alone for thousands of years before gangly schools of aliens started appearing like clockwork in the afternoon, bloated, hunter orange vested torsos with giant bug eyes and curled upper lips.We floated in ankle deep water and tried our best to avoid choral scrapings. While colorful fish paced nervously in droves, one badass black one propelled right toward my facemask. Anyone who reads this blog is by now familiar with my aversion to/fascination with small creatures such as mice, rats, bats, spiders and snakes. I did not anticipate adding small tropical fish to that list, but when he torpedoed at me, I flailed and shrieked, releasing air bubbles and banging choral in the process. I fared better when the big Italian woman from our boat pointed out a sea snake. Black and blue, it came up for air periodically, and I was one of the few to catch a glimpse. While I managed to avoid any contact with what I later learned to be one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, I did get sideswiped and bitten by the little torpedo fish on the way back tot he boat.

At one point we beached and were served lunch. There was enough for everyone in our posse to have one whole small fire grilled tuna and a skewer of chicken pieces. The female half of the horny Italian couple took two chickens instead of the one fish, leaving the topless Euro with none. I gladly would have taken two fish to even the numbers for her, had I gone first. The chicken was fatty but the tuna was bomb.

We laid in the sand as light rain fell and tried to shed our open book pages from the drops. One thing I've known for a long time, but always seem to ignore, is that you can get sunburned in overcast skies, especially being as close to the equator as we were. I wore a cutoff shirt the day before, which left me with pink arms and a white belly. Sami, had a less visible problem. She really had to pee. I was unsympathetic to her plight, having relieved myself multiple times out in the discreet South China Sea. However, she made me her culprit by handing me the camera and instructing me to snap pictures of her waist deep in the ocean. Apparently, she thought that this act of tourism would disguise her true motive of dirtying the water with warm urine. I guess the Euro modesty didn't change her after all.

Our boat

Lunch on the beach

Sunburned arms and a white belly