Full on adventure

  Yesterday was another absolutely amazing day in Costa Rica. The afternoon was a chain of tidal moments. I asked a friend if she wanted to go snorkeling. She said yes, and let me show you a new place to snorkel, and let me buy you guys dinner. Does life get any better than that? I don't think so.
  anywhere.com says Samara is one of the prettiest and safest beaches in all of Costa Rica. I believe them. It's a 3 mile coastline. We are on one end and the 3 of us biked half way down the beach and left our bikes at a friend's place. Then we walked the rest of the way to the tip, where the island is. The island that I see every time I'm on the beach, and seems so close, yet so far away. This is what the island looks like from our side of the beach.

The island after sunset.

So we biked and walked to the end of the beach, and swam across the gap to the island. It was fantastic. I saw a sea turtle! It was huge. And it was so close that my husband dove down to try and touch it. It was only maybe 5 feet down. It moved before he got there, and it was fast. It was so magical to actually see one, so close. It came up for air and went back down. Then it was gone in a flash. It's amazing how something so heavy and bulky can move so gracefully in the water (the turtle, not me). The gap doesn't look very big, does it? I have been staring at it for 5 months, and we finally swam there. I've walked to the point before, and stared out at the island.

It's like being an astronaut with fins. It's leaving everything behind, and being surrounded by unbreathable space (water). It's like being in an alternate universe, seeing others underwater, and seeing all the creatures. I weigh less, I move differently, it's so fun! We saw a pink sea fan, it was such a delicate pink, against some dark rock. Just beautiful. The fish were so pretty too. I saw some new ones, nature is so creative with the coloring and shapes of fish!

When we arrived at the island it felt glorious. Like: "I did it!". Like I wanted to plant a Suzette flag, because I had finally arrived. To actually stand on the shore, with a new outlook on Samara. I had done it! I was victorious. Then I realized.... I had to swim back. Oh boy. It's a good thing it was so exciting and I was with people I trusted. On the way back we swam about 4 feet above a really big sting ray. It was crazy. I saw it, and I thought about worrying over it, but we kept going, and it didn't pay us much attention. My heart beat a little faster though. Then we think we swam through some baby jelly fish. We were all stung, but we never saw anything. It wasn't bad, it wasn't like a bee sting or anything. More like a small kitten scratch. I just remember feeling something, and kind of brushing my leg. We didn't get to talk about it until the walk home. The stinging seemed to pop up on different parts of my arms and legs. It would come and go, but was pretty much gone by the time we ate dinner.  My legs started to cramp a bit towards the end of the swim, but it was manageable. We were in the water most of time, we spent maybe 15 minutes on the island beach looking at the view.

Okay, the last amazing thing before we got out of the water was swimming through a school of sardines. I'd say each one was maybe the size of my thumb, I guess. There were so many of them! It was cool. We were in the water for about an hour and a half. I'm not sure. Time stands still when you are submerged. When you visit another universe, the seconds and minutes are all observed on a different level.

Then we got back on the beach for the walk to the bikes. The entire walk was spent was watching the sun set to our left. With the rising moon behind us. Walking on the beach, and watching the sun drop and glow orange - it felt like walking inside a Himalayan salt lamp. I felt so happy about the snorkeling, the weather was so perfect, the sand was so lovely. Pure magic! We just took it all in, with the constant changing of colors for the sky, water, and sand.

We rode our bikes most of the way back, and then had dinner on the beach. I had bragged about the best nachos ever, and our friend agreed with me. We sat watching the ocean disappear as it got darker and darker. Good company, best food, grand adventure, it was just wonderful. Yesterday was full of treasured memories that will last forever.