Port-of-call number 2, Costa Maya.  Costa Maya was once a trading post for the Mayan Empire.  It is now a favorite for snorkling, kayaking and exploring Mayan ruins.  Once off the ship we went on a coral reef snorkel exploration by boat.  Jae and I had brought our own snorkels and masks.  Our last snorkling experience in Maui found the communal equipment to be a little unsanitary…all the equipment were in a large bucket of water.  For something that you stick in your mouth for an hour or so, we figured it was better to just bring our own this time.  The snorkels we bought were a little better than the generic tour snorkels that looked like a large straw.  We got ones that had purge valves on the bottom to blow out excess water and also a flapper valve at the top that closes when the snorkel submerges - keeping water out.  The goggles were also very clear and unscratched.  I was glad we got them.

Putting on our flippers we hopped into the water after the boat drove us out about 45 minutes.  The water felt a little cold at first but as we started swimming we warmed up. I’m not a strong swimmer so I wore my life vest.  It was the type that you blow into to inflate.  I started out with the vest half inflated and inflated it more as I got tired.  When the life vest is fully inflated it was really hard to keep your head down in the water. Jae also wore his vest but he kept it deflated, he’s a better swimmer and said that with the flippers and the salinity of the ocean water it was really easy to stay afloat.  But as time went on he eventually inflated his a bit too. 

The water in Costa Maya isn’t as clear and the reef isn’t as pretty as the ones in Maui, the waves were much rougher too.  If you don’t pay attention it could really drag you quite a ways away.  But it was a lot of fun nevertheless.  We had a guide that took us around the reef and showed us different corals and fishes.  The guide warned us to be careful and not step on the corals since parts of the reefs were pretty tall, some even stuck out of the water. 

About 30 minutes in, I was busy drifting and looking in the water for fishes, I thought I heard my name being called.  Looking up I looked around for Jae, he was behind to the left of me yelling something.  I thought maybe he found something cool.  When he saw me look up, he yelled again, “Watch out for the reef!!”.  *huh? watch out?* “What reef?!” I yelled back, the corals I was looking at a minute ago were pretty far down. Jae then pointed towards my right.  Worried, I swung around to look at him and BAM! ran into the reef with my knee.  Ouch! THAT reef! Apparently the current had pushed me towards a large reef nearby that was bearly underwater as I was drifting and talking to Jae. I figured that if Jae hadn’t tried to warn and thus distracted me I would’ve seen the reef and not run into it!! =P

It reminded of the time when we first started dating, we were taking an evening stroll after it had rained.  I was yapping away about who knows what and suddenly he interrupted me and said, “Snail.”  Snail? confused, I stopped talking and looked at him. “What?” I asked as I took another step forward. “Snail, snail.” he repeated again, pointing down. I looked down and around me and then…Crunch!… it was too late.  AHHH, snail….! He could’ve pulled me away, stopped me, said ‘watchout for the snail on the ground’, but nope, he just said ’snail’.  As if I was suppose to understand that! I suppose he hasn’t learned.

After my run-in with the reef, I stuck around Jae, he dragged me around for a while while I claimed to be incapacitated.  I wasn’t hurt badly, just a surface scratch on my thigh above the knee, but the salt water sure didn’t help!

The rest of the tour was uneventful.  We got back to the boat, rinsed off and headed back to the dock. The excursion was only about 3 hours, so we had plenty of time after we returned.  We spent the rest of the day looking around at the tourist trap shops.  There wasn’t really anything I wanted to buy and it was getting warm so we headed back to the ship. 

Good bye Costa Maya!!