I thought while still on the boat returning from snorkeling that I was going to go back to my room, flop on the bed in the (weak but at least better than outdoors) air conditioning, and take a long nap. I felt terrible, and exhausted. But by the time we got back to shore and I walked back down the road to my homestay, I was feeling much better, and not in the mood to go in just yet. So I kept walking past the gate and right on out to the beach. I saw a couple of other people go for a quick swim down there, despite the boats, and I really didn't care any more if I was weird for swimming there or not. The same old guy was holding down a bench under an umbrella at the hotel with the beachfront grounds, and he encouraged me further, telling me where to leave my bag so it wouldn't get wet (which was very kind of him, and as it turned out, very helpful, as the tide was coming in and it would have gotten wet if I'd put it where I otherwise would have).
I waded out into the water and spent a pleasant hour bobbing around. There was a bit of an undertow, so I did have to keep an eye out on where I was so as not to be washed up against any of the boats. Frankly, it's a bit boring to swim alone with no one to talk to, as there weren't many waves there (inside the breakwater) and no where to go, so it was just floating around, but it felt good to laze in the water so I stayed quite a while. Finally I drug myself out, just in time to catch my flip-flops before they got washed down the beach by the tide, and headed back to the homestay. I still wasn't really ready to be out of the water, but needed a change of scenery, so when I got there I dropped my bag in a chair by my door and got directly into the pool. There was a ledge just right for sitting on in the corner; if there was somewhere comfortable to put my head, I think I could have taken a nap right there in the water. Every now and then I would leave my perch to swim around the pool. I stayed in until not only my fingers but my entire hands and feet were wrinkly.
After thus thoroughly soaking myself, I went in and showered (the coldest water of the day, incidentally), and finally surrendered to that nap that I was thinking of earlier. I slept most of the afternoon. I thought I'd probably missed it, but I drug myself out to walk back down to the beach to see if there was any kind of sunset, and arrived at the perfect time to see the sky go pink. It wasn't the greatest sunset I've seen, but it was nice, and I stayed sitting on a concrete ledge and looking out over the water until it got dark. The locals were busy as darkness fell--they were doing some sort of fishing or seaweed-collecting, and as it got darker, I saw their spotlights come on from their little boats as they moved slowly around the calm water of the bay inside the breakwater.
0 comments:
Post a Comment