Kayaking anyone?

Let's!

How is this for the most "vacationy" picture of the year? Winner!

So while on the cruise, Stefan and I were able to choose 2 excursions to do off boat, sans baby. As I love kayaking, we jumped at the clear bottom kayak and nature walk excursion in Grand Turk. 

Holland America uses local tour groups for their excursions, so no one from Holland America actually goes with you or is there...you know to help you if you need it. You get off the boat and get picked up by the guide, who you hope actually is the guide, and off you go. On this excursion we got on a bus with a local driver who let us know right away that Grand Turk was the safest island. "No crime mon. Where else does the police station share a space with a bar?"

Um, I don't know? Hell?

"This Island is so safe. No one will steal from you. It is incredibly safe!"

The whole time he is saying this we are heading farther and farther away from the boat and I am thinking, "this is where he convinces us how safe we are, drives us out to nowhere, he and his friends take all our belongings and then say something piffy like, 'but it's not the safest today, mon.'" 

You know, a friendly robbery.

We get out to where we are going to kayak and I am still not convinced that all is well as we watch the bus and driver leave in a cloud of dust. Goodbye way to get back to the boat!

Of course, I just watch too many crime shows and everything is of course totally safe and fine...or is it? No, no, it totally is.

Now who is ready to kayak!?

This girl!

Who is ready to see some wildlife?

This guy!

Ring Ring...ring ring...

uh...hello?

Yes, is Stefan there?

May I ask who is calling?

Yes, this is something totally disgusting.

Oh! Hi! Just one second.

STEFAN! Conch Shell for you! It's something totally disgusting!

Click.

KAYAK!

So it should be a given that if one kayak tour goes great then the other kayak tour you signed up for should also go great. Right?

Our next stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was about a charming as a strip mall in the rain forest...which is what it was...all strip malls in a rain forest.

Stefan and I had signed up for the night time, bioluminescent kayak tour. Cool right? 5 hours of tropical, magical beauty?

Oh, the first 2 hours are driving through rush hour traffic to the other side of the island past strip malls and Taco Bells in a bus with a guide who didn't even introduce herself...well that's ummm...all right, right?

Oh, did you say the driver would be on his cell phone and that there would be roaches on the bus?

Oh, did you say dinner was provided? Oh, but did you leave out that dinner was the bus pulling up to a strip mall where there was a McDonalds and a Taco Bell and that there would be an announcement that "this was last place for bathroom, you have 20 minutes."

20 minutes? To do what? Is this dinner? Hello? Is this for real?

Taco Bell for real.

(This is not THE Taco Bell we parked next to, but does that matter?)

You know what I do not think is a good idea? Eating Taco Bell before going on a 1.5 hour kayak trip. yikes.

Best part of the drive out there was this sign:

Ok, we get to the kayak place and we get geared up and head out for some night kayaking.

Now let me take a moment to say I actually really ejoyed the night kayaking. Kayaking in the dark is very cool. We were kayaking through very thin streams through the rain forest with crazy animal and jungle sounds. Stefan was great. We really have gotten great at kayaking together. Kayaking can be a relationship ender. We however are very honest and leave ego behind. The guides always say "ok, we need the strongest person in the back who is good with steering." Stefan is always the first to step forward so that I am in the back. We do have fun.

Ok back to being snarky.

Deeper and deeper into the forest we go until we break through the trees into this huge bay. Ok, bring on the bioluminescence! The pictures showed people glowing in the dark in the water...like this...

I have no idea why I, Biz "there is no wonder left in the world" Lawrence, should have expected the above representation to be what we would find on this bioluminescent bay kayak tour.

Stefan seems to think this is what it was like. He was plenty impressed.

This, however is what I saw. I give my bioluminescent video.

Untitled from Epic Family on Vimeo.

When you are married to your best friend, you wind up making the same joke over and over again. We like to quote Jurassic Park. "Um, will there be any bioluminescence on your bioluminescence tour?"

Well, at least we have the 1.5 hour drive back to the boat.

Oh Biz!

Let's refocus, shall we? With Adorable Baby!

Untitled from Epic Family on Vimeo.