Yesterday, we survived the time share pitch during and after a free breakfast. If I’m buying a time share (which I’m not), I’m doing it online anyway since it must be cheaper. Their only response to this statement was “who knows what you’re really buying or even if the sale is legitimate”. I think this is what credit card disputes are for. They also insisted on asking random old people at the resort (who were all members) if they thought we should sign up. You’ll be surprised to hear that they, having already chosen to do so, all thought that we should.
At 11am we went to the free dance lesson, salsa. Despite the fact that I attracted my wife while dancing, I am not a good dancer. Cynthia, however, is gifted. The minor awkwardness that she found cute when we first met she now finds frustrating and annoying. Steps come to her quickly and easily. I always feel like I need twice the amount of repetition we get in any given dance lesson. Add all this up – Cynthia can salsa perfectly, I can salsa only poorly, often stepping the wrong way, losing the beat, and immediately forgetting 3 of the 5 moves we learned. This is why we rarely dance.
We went sailing again after Mediterranean lunch in our room in preparation for the race tomorrow. The wind was lighter, but we were still able to master some more basics like tacking and weight distribution. After, we went to beach to play in the waves and body surf. The 5 foot waves are too big for Cynthia and she’s not used to playing in them, having grown up in a place where waves are far away and dangerously cold. They knock her down and skin her knees close to shore. If she gets deeper, they wash her away at the break, or rip her suit off if she tries to dive through them. Today I will pay $6 to rent a boogie board and see if that makes any difference.
We hung out in the pool the rest of the afternoon, forgoing drinks in lieu of our evening appointment “Party Fishing”. The concierge talked me into this as a substitute for early morning fly fishing – with Cynthia coming along as a “cruise only” passenger, it was still half the price. We took the bus to a random dock a few miles away. Since their wouldn’t be any food on the trip until 11pm, we found a pleasant seafood restraint on the lagoon and quickly wolfed down calamari and “pesca-dill-o’s” (in gringo speak), i.e. deep fried fish tacos. Back at the dock, we made quick friends with a guy from the Bronx (Frank) and a mother and son from Philly (Ruth and Jason) who were joining us on the trip. The boat arrived, large but not particularly fancy, and we steamed off to a couple miles offshore to drop our hooks in while the not looking happy to be there crew served us beer in plastic cups (this was the “party” feature of the trip). I’d never used an offshore rod before, but with some brief instructions quickly figured it out. The lady from Philly immediately caught two fish. Soon, things slowed for everyone (there were about 20 of us), with a fish every five minutes or so . . . each exotic and reefy looking – not the drab freshwater fish I am used to. They would cut them up right there in the center of the boat. About an hour later I hadn’t even had a bite. . We moved spots, sipping beer in between. Even though Cynthia was not fishing, she enjoyed the warm breeze and the gentle swaying of the boat. I still had nothing by the next stop, and Cynthia started brining up the sabbatical curse. Instead, the Bronx guy gave me a tequila shot to change my luck and took me under his wing. He had been using some of the scrap fish from the cleaning along with the standard calamari and was having much better luck. I almost immediately hooked something huge, a certainly a bonefish according to Frank. It pulled on the rod harder than any fish I’d ever hooked. I worked to keep the tension on the rod and slowly reel it in, but soon it bit through the line and I lost my whole rig (hook and weight). The guy from the Bronx gave me his rod in pity, and immediately got a new one of his own from the crew. He promptly hooked a fish and insisted that I land it since it was actually “my rod”. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and so:
(click for more pics)
The crew was nowhere to be found, so I took the hook out and threw the fish back since it was still wiggling around and there were not cutting fish up anymore. This apparently was a problem. I had seen them throw back some fish because they were poisonous, but this apparently didn’t apply to my fish, which the crew would have saved and taken home to eat. Oh well.
Just a few minutes later, our 3 hours of fishing time was over, and we steamed back to port. On the way, the crew served rice, mixed veggies, chips and the freshest, best ceviche Cynthia and I had ever had. She’s still talking about how good it was today.
This morning we played an early game of tennis on the resort courts. Building on previous momentum, Cynthia, a high school tennis player, eventually became frustrated with my moderate tennis skills, but the hour was up anyway. We need to do some laundry and are a bit short on Mediterranean lunch supplies, so we picked up the little we needed to get through the next couple days at the resort market and then took showers and a nap.
We’re planning to sail and boogie board this afternoon, with dinner at an Argentine steakhouse recommended by Ruth.
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