honeymoon: part 5 (last one!)

our last night in puerto rico, we ate at the hotel's nicest restaurant, the strip house. we both got filet mignon, which was good, but i would choose costco steaks over that any day. the best part about that restaurant was that it overlooked the bioluminescent bay. we couldn't see any of the bioluminescence from that distance, but it was beautiful. we bought some ice cream and went to the pool after dinner (we swam almost every night. no sun = good for us whiteys), then sat on a bench in the garden overlooking the ocean and looked at the stars.

the last day of our honeymoon was spent traveling, mostly. we were too burned to spend any more time in the sun, so we packed up and watched tv for a bit before we checked out, then played card games in the hotel lobby while we waited for the airport shuttle. tv in puerto rico is funny-- most of the programming is piped in from mainland america, so the shows and the main commercials are in english, but all of the local commercials are in spanish.

other things to know about puerto rico:

.. almost everyone speaks english, though they prefer to converse in spanish (same goes for the parrots)
.. most traffic signs are in spanish, but they might as well be in japanese because no one heeds them
.. the rum is free-flowing, and i never saw anyone ask for age identification
.. it is very hot and humid
.. dogs roam the streets, not sure if they are tame or not
.. rain is in the forecast almost every day, and it does rain almost every day, but not for long
.. crocs are the shoe of choice

we loved our honeymoon, and puerto rico was a great place to spend it. though todd and i both agreed that we would have been equally as happy to have spent that time with our families somewhere, even somewhere less exciting that puerto rico.

the end!

honeymoon: part four

we went snorkeling!

todd had been talking about going snorkeling for as long as i can remember. i told him a long time ago that if we ever got married, i would go with him. i hoped he would forget i said that. no such luck.

on thursday, the captain of the snorkeling catamaran picked us up from our hotel and took us to the marina, where we boarded the "traveller" and headed for icacos island. the guide said the reefs around this island would be a good introduction to snorkeling, and practice for what was coming next.


the water at the first reef was probably only 12-15 feet deep, and (amazingly) it wasn't too traumatizing for me to swim along the outer edge of the reef with open ocean to one side. i actually had a lot of fun! the water was incredibly salty, so floating around the top of the reef was almost effortless. none of the fish came near me, and they were all relatively small. (that helped.)


the second reef we went to was off of a private island, lobos. the water was so deep, probably 20 feet or deeper... and i actually got in it, even after seeing a 2.5-foot long barracuda (ew) swimming right by the boat! i didn't like being in such deep water (and kept gagging on the seawater), so i didn't stay out for long at the second reef. i went back to the boat and worried about todd being eaten by six-foot spotted eagle rays.

for those who do not believe that i would ever voluntarily enter the fish-infested water of a lake, let alone the ocean, i now present the evidence of my having actually snorkeled:

{ heisman! }

and this awesome shot is brought to you by the flotation device strapped around my waist. i was trying to stay submerged long enough to take a picture, but the floaty kept pulling me right back up:

todd really wanted to see a ray or a dolphin, the guide said her snorkelers had seen both in the past week, but none were around that day. i must say, i wasn't too upset about that. i probably would have mistaken a dolphin for a shark (and panicked). and rays would only be slightly less traumatizing than sharks.


we didn't see any large marine life, but we did see a variety of fish. the most common fish seemed to be the blue flat ones-- hundreds of little dorys (from "finding nemo"). todd even saw an eel!


his favorite trick was to "play dead" by floating motionless at the water's surface for several minutes so the fish would come suck at his fingers and eat bread out of his hand. this was not my favorite trick.


when the boat pulled back into the harbor, we saw dozens of iguanas sunning themselves on the barriers. i was happy to be off the boat and out of the sun, but also proud of myself for doing something that scared me.

honemoon: part three

wednesday, the third day of our puerto rican adventure, went something like this:

10 a.m. -- marissa goes to store to buy overpriced aloe
11 a.m. -- marissa goes to store to buy 2 more overpriced aloes
noon -- marissa goes back to the store to buy souvenirs
1 p.m. -- marissa makes todd get out of bed to play cards (purchased at store)
2 p.m. -- marissa regrets making todd get up, because he's beating her at cards
3 p.m. -- todd watches a movie while marissa takes a nap

so not the most exciting day. poor todd. but the tour we scheduled for that night was amazing, and totally made up for a slow day.



at dusk, we went to a bay right outside the hotel property. we got in sea kayaks and headed across the dark, choppy bay to a small opening in a mangrove forest near the land. we paddled the kayak through 1.5 miles of twisting mangrove forest to an enclosed bay, arriving just as the sun was setting. it had been drizzling rain the entire ride in, but as soon as our group got to the bay, it started to pour rain. it was so beautiful.

i was really excited to see this, but also pretty freaked out about canoeing on the ocean at night. it turned out to be so awesome, and i wasn't that nervous about it. it helped when i discovered that todd has pretty good kayak skills. he did most of the rowing, i was otherwise occupied swatting away the mosquitos. and somehow i still got dozens of bites.

the bay, laguna grande, was created when the mangrove forest grew to connect an island with the mainland. the trees filtered the water such that certain organisms live there in high concentrations. these organisms involuntarily give off light when disturbed, creating the "bioluminescent bay." when we stuck our hands (or the kayak paddles) in the water and moved them around, the water glowed pale blue.

{ one of the more open spots of the canal }

the return trip was kind of crazy. imagine dozens of kayaks (some coming, some going) maneuvering through a pretty small and very twisty channel lined with roots and overhanging branches with almost zero light (just a few tiny glowsticks here and there). and imagine these kayaks being operated by people who have no clue what they are doing. one couple a few boats ahead of us somehow veered sideways and went shooting out of the channel into the root forest. i had a nice laugh at their expense.