Vieques, PR: The Biobay Incident

We spent the weekend in Vieques, Puerto Rico, one of the most unique and beautiful places I've ever been. We were there for the wedding of two of Yan's friends and they suggested a gorgeous little B&B for the wedding guests. While we were there, we explored spectacular secluded beaches and met lots of other fun couples, as well as old friends of Yan's.

One of the things I was disappointed to have missed was the trek out to Biobay on Thursday night. We arrived Friday afternoon and there wasn't another scheduled boat tour until it was dark enough again, after the 15th of November. I was willing to grudgingly accept this fate, until one of Yan's friends came up with the idea of kayaking out there ourselves. I felt this might be a risky proposition, but the other couples seemed game so we decided to go for it. And lo and behold, there was a (pricey) tour available, so it seemed fitting that we should spend our last night in Puerto Rico quietly kayaking under the stars toward one of the wonders of the universe--bioluminescent dinoflagellates!

I am not an athletic person, mind you, but I had been kayaking before, with my mom in Monterey Bay in California. Mostly we just kayaked in circles, giggling our heads off and annoying the instructor, but I figured that if I could live through kayaking in the Pacific, I could probably handle Biobay. (Never mind that Biobay is part of the Caribbean.)

The first surprise I was in for after arriving at the rental place is that the kayaks were the single-person variety. Then, after relocating to the bay, the instructor handed me a crooked oar, which I promptly switched with Yan for his good one (hey, he's run two marathons). They wouldn't have given it to us if it didn't work, right? An overpriced shoe-string operation with apparently no insurance and minimal working equipment willing to take us out when no other tours on the island were running lead us astray? Never!

We struggle into our kayaks and set out on the water and everything is seemingly going fine. Yan is a bit ahead of me but I'm trying not to take it too seriously, just working to get the rhythm of the oar movement down. I'm solidly in the middle when I lose track of Yan, who I assume is leading the pack with his natural athleticism. Only slightly bitter, I buckle down at the task at hand. Left-right-left-right-left-right... I am so immersed in this that when I hear in the distance, "Power down! Don't stop paddling! Feel the burn, work through it!" I think "poor loser can't keep up." Then I turn around and realize that nobody but the instructor and another kayaker way out to the left are behind me. I am the poor loser.

Suppressing a cry in my throat, my progress gets slower and slower as I blame Yan for leaving me alone, my mother for not encouraging athletics, my bio-dad for my skinny weak arms, the instructor for his insulting chants...

Finally, the instructor paddles up to me. "You look like you could use a break," he says, hitching the front of my vessel to the tail of his. I confess that I could. "Hey, you're doing better than that guy," he says. I nod and feel smug. (Never mind that "that guy" is probably a stroke victim and paddling with the only working side of his body.) A minute later Yan sidles over to us. My lovely, adorable husband with the bent oar had given up his place in the pack to look for me, when he lost momentum and couldn't recover it with the bad oar. The instructor gives Yan my oar, and we sheepishly make our way to our waiting friends in the luminescent splendor.

I was hugely relieved to learn that we had kayaked under the worst possible conditions (high winds, creating white caps in the bay). I felt sure that with the wind at my back on the way home, I'd be able to kayak with the best of them. But then I got stuck with a different style of oar, in which the paddles face different directions, and while I spun myself in circles, Yan and his proper oar led the pack. I waved my arms until the instructor came over and wordlessly hitched me to his kayak for the second time.

Next: Adventures in Vieques continued: "Island Time"

Below see pictures of Green Beach, our room in Vieques, and the view from our room.