Saturday February 12th - Lost at Sea

After our early to bed evening, we woke up Saturday morning feeling refreshed and back on track (and back to our normal schedule since the roosters had obviously returned home). We started the day off with a hot but happy jog, followed by some working out in our even hotter apartment. Once we had worked up a serious sweat, we rinsed off in our cold shower and Jenny made yet another successful meal—toad in a hole! It was a delicious breakfast (and treat for Kelly who would be eating peanut butter and cereal only if Jenny wasn’t a little Betty Crocker).

We set off for the beach with packed backpacks and one goal – kayaking. It was the next excursion we wanted to try, in addition to being a great workout and way to tan. We made friends with Pablo, who owns one of the beachside services here (surf lessons, kayaking, snorkeling, etc.) and he told us to wait about 30 minutes for the tide to go down a bit. We went for a swim (Jenny bravely braced the waters again despite her crab scratched foot) and then talk to our friend Jessica for a while to kill time. When we went back, Pablo suited us up in our life jackets and gave us a lesson on how to kayak to the island by drawing a picture in the sand with a paddle. Turns out, getting there is not quite a straight shot. We had to first get through the surf (with a little push from them), and then make an “S” shape around a so-called reef which we couldn’t see from shore. Once we got to the island we had to paddle through the channel to the north side so avoid landing on rocks and being, well, screwed. Despite the somewhat chaotic directions, we set off for sea! The way there was exciting, surprisingly exhausting, and overall very intense. We took several breaks to look back at Samara and around us; I wish we could have taken pictures because the views around us were breath-taking. We quickly learned how distorted your perception of space and movement becomes once you get this far into the ocean. We headed for the Island in hopes we had already passed the dreaded reef. The waves between Samara and the island were colliding intensely along this rocky area; we aimed our kayak for the sandy beach which was actually a very rocky/shallow ocean floor and BOOM! We flipped. Kelly went down sideways; making her leg feel like it was on fire but popped back up only to find poor Jenny trapped under our giant green kayak, helping her up so she could chase her paddle before it went out to sea. We were left with some decent battle wounds but nothing as bruised our egos in front of the other 4 kayakers about to set back off to Samara.

We hung out on the island for a while, but were too scared (and smart) to swim in the mighty pacific (told you not to worry Mike Puckett). A European couple kayaked up before we left, in a much more graceful manor, and helped us get off the island with much more ease than we had come in with. We attempted to figure out our route back based on what we could see. Here’s the deal: what you see from the ocean, island or beach, is totally based on where you are! I wish we could describe how distorted your perception is once you’re out in the ocean but it would sound totally nonsensical. What we thought was our best route back turned out to be pretty far off and we were left totally overwhelmed… but we kept paddling and heading back towards town (after much conversation about where the heck we were- there aren’t really any good landmarks in our tiny town), bracing the crashing waves around us. Well, that is until one wave got the best of us. Yep, you guessed it. Flipped again! This time we were close enough to the shore that we decided just to drag our kayak through the last 200 yards or so in the shallow water. By the time we got back we realized it had been nearly 3 hours. He said it would take about 30 minutes to the island, so we’re guessing it may have taken our weak arms a wee bit longer.

We stole a few lounge chairs in front of Gusto and ate our sacked lunch- peanut butter sandwiches and plums. We were SO tired. It was almost 3 o’clock and we had been going since about 7. We’ve realized that some days, we have to remind ourselves in the late afternoon how much we have done in that one day already!

We headed to Olas to get these travel plans under our belt. Kelly decided to change up our searches and found some killer deals. So, after a long and tedious night of details and organizing, we did it! We are excited to give our faithful readers (hey parents) our newest plan:

We will be leaving Samara (most likely on a bus) for San Jose on Wednesday, February 23^rd. Thursday morning, we will be flying on Delta from San Jose to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to New York City! We’re going to spend a long weekend in NYC, reorganizing our luggage (i.e. minimizing it) and then flying to London on Monday, February 28^th (arriving there the morning of March 1^st). The details after this are…. Well there aren’t any. But we plan to spend time with jenny’s extended family there and then head to Italy and Spain with a Euro pass. But I guess if there is one thing we have learned in the last week (whoa, it’s only been a week?!), is that plans change. And to not fly United. But mostly that plans change. So we’re open to seeing what happens next… or when we run out of money ;)

Stay tuned for pics and videos-- wi-fi not super at the moment ! Love to all.