Sheila's Stories and Stitches: Our Anniversary

Cake and champagne - what a wonderful breakfast!

It's our anniversary (for real)! Baros provides us with a complimentary breakfast on our villa deck. We enjoy the endless water view as we feast on our mimosas and eggs. Right after we go inside and have the dishes cleared, a huge storm rolls in. Great timing for us! It's fun to watch the wind and waves - we estimate the gusts at 30 mph.

At the start of breakfast...

...and the end of breakfast!

Time for one still life photo before the thunderstorm starts!

Night snorkeling, here we come!

We decide to try a private night snorkeling excursion so we can view some of the nocturnal water life. Neither of us have ever snorkeled at night before. In fact, I hadn't even known it existed until I saw it listed as an activity at our resort. To begin we have an information session about some of the creatures we might see. Apparently, all the poisonous, stinging animals come out at night, so I have no plans to touch anything! We're also warned not to shine our flashlights directly into the eyes of the animals, like the sharks. Sometimes they decide to swim towards the light....and you're at the end of it! After our orientation we go to the cove and enter the water with our flashlights. We haven't even put on our fins and masks when a nurse shark comes into the cove. He's swimming around in less than 2 feet of water. He's a juvenile, so only about 4 feet long, and I just double check with our guide that the babies understand they're not supposed to bite the humans!

Sparky!

It's incredible in the water - I think I know what it must be like in outer space now. You can't hear anything and it's completely pitch black, except for what our beams of light illuminate. A little spooky, but cool, too.

We see Sparky, a turtle who swims around for us, and a couple more sleeping in the rocks. None of the nineteen turtles that live at the reef were out when we snorkeled during the day. They all have unique markings, unlike the sharks, so the guides all know their names and where they like to rest at night.

the rare spotted sting ray

There's also a spotted sting ray, which is rare to catch sight of (Elise, our guide, is excited about it).

In the water, I have lots of fun quickly turning behind me with my light, to see the schools of little fish (hundreds of them) swimming behind us. Right as my light hits they they would scatter. Then they would drift back and I'd see them all again the next time I turned around.

Lionfish, I think. Whatever he is, he looks cool.

Pretty, poisonous coral! No touch!

Here little fishy...

diving into the abyss

The parrotfish is too sleepy to poop out any sand.

I hope he's not hungry!

At one point two black tip reef sharks come nearby. It's a little scarier seeing them at night than in the day! They're at least ten feet away, but we're also between them and a lobster, which they like to eat (me, too). I didn't want the sharks to get mad since we were between them and their food! I keep an eye on them until they swim out of the reach of my light. Knowing they're in the water is one thing, but knowing they're within ten feet of me and not being able to see them is another.

Who gets to eat the lobster? If it's me vs the shark, he wins.

We see lots of gorgeous fish, coral and starfish. At one point we turn off our flashlights, then do a "dog paddle" in the water with our hands and feet. The plankton starts to glow in the dark, creating a bioluminescence. Thousands of mini points of light are glowing all around us. Now it really feels like we're in outer space.

Moray eel's head - he's unnerving!

It's a great adventure and we at least glimpse almost all of the 50-60 creatures that Elise talked about before we started. The only ones we don't see are an octopus (hard to find) and a moray eel. We kind of wanted to see a moray eel, but we're kind of glad not to see one, too. They grow up to 10 feet long, and they look intimidating!

We're supposed to finish the evening with a private seafood dinner on our deck. However, because of the strong winds today, they decide to move us to another villa on the other side of the island. We quickly run back to shower and change, and find a message waiting for us.

They even spell my name right!

appetizers

Luckily, because it's a private dinner, we don't have to dress up (I don't even dry my hair. Neither does Steve.). We're escorted to the dinner location, a villa on the beach. It's like we're on a completely different island. There is absolutely no breeze here and it's blowing 15-20 mph at our place. I end up with 17 mosquito bites (I counted) during the couple of hours we're there, and in five days I have zero at our villa (bats and wind - good for keeping away mosquitoes).

Steve checking out the chef's technique!

We have our own chef and server with us. Steve enjoys watching the chef grill, though I think he wants to have his own turn at it, too!

Our dinner menu

It's a nice experience and a fantastic dinner, but I don't think I'll be hiring my own cook anytime soon. It feels a little weird having two people there just to wait on us. We love being out under the stars though, and we have a wonderful anniversary.