We have probably sounded a mite grumpy so far; we were very tired when we got here, and a little desperate for our tropical beach experience, and instead what we found was gray sky, relentless wind, a freezing pool and poor diving conditions.
Today, everything was different. In the morning the wind and sea had dropped enough that we could (at last) dive in Tanote Bay, right in front of the resort, where the visibility was twice as good and the sea life three times as good. I must have seen fifty different species of fish and innumerable corals, plus a blue stingray and, yes, a ghostly algae-painted moped sitting upright on its kickstand at 12 meters. Our first “dive wreck”!
Afterwards, lunch right on the beach, with a view of blue water, blue sky, and palm trees and bougainvillea ruffled by a gentle sea breeze. This afternoon we snorkeled in the other end of the bay and saw even more amazements, including a huge blue parrot fish that drifted beside us and bizarre blue-lipped clams that sucked themselves shut like prim dowagers as we passed. Then R+A+D wrestled in the surf while K lay on a towel offering strategic advice.
At 6 o’clock K and R retired to the waterfront massage shack for a solid hour of being oiled and pummeled into another dimension. We returned to this plane just after dark, in time to sit on the beach with A+D and some cocktails that tasted exactly like cough syrup; we spent half an hour discussing the posture of Orion, who was hunting Taurus high in the east. And then we wandered down the sand to an open-air restaurant serving barbecued Marlin…
Declan: “Tell me again. Exactly WHY is it we don’t live here?”
Tomorrow, alas, something vaguely akin to reality: the ferry to Ko Samui and flights to Bangkok, then Phnom Penh.
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