The lagoon was quite pretty from the exterior. It was what lurked below that was… well…
So we reserved a “GLASS BOTTOMED KAYAK” in a lagoon in Princess Cays, The Bahamas. How can that not be awesome, right? The description on the website for this excursion reads: “From this unique perspective you can see the colorful marine life below the surface of the crystal clear waters such as eels, clownfish, angelfish and sea turtles. Have your camera at the ready.”
Hell, I’m envisioning Nemo and all his rainbow colored pals flittering about in psychedelic ribbons of schools as I float above.
They piled the six of us (me, Beloved, Blondie and three other unwitting tourists) into a little golf cart and drove us 40 feet or so past what might have been a toxic waste plant.
(The Boy didn’t come with us on this family outing as he’s injured his back/knee and while sitting in a kayak might be possible, getting in and, more importantly, rolling him out of said kayak was looking problematic. Poor guy’s having to use a cane during this trip.)
This excursion required you to attest to your ability to swim. I’m a wee bit confused as to that, and to why we needed to sign a waiver regarding the possibility of death by drowning, given at its deepest the water MIGHT have hit my knees… although now I wonder if it could have been because of whatever was being processed near that place.
I was also not terribly thrilled at smashing the girls into a small men’s life jacket. It fit at my throat, but after that, forget it. Seriously? I hafta flatten my boobs to meet at my shoulder blades for a FOOT OF WATER??
SIGH.
Then comes the kicker.
Aw, maaaaaan! Those damn kayaks are doubles?
Oooookay. We decided to risk our marriage once again by sharing a two person kayak (for those unfamiliar, see the post last year about kayaking in the Azores).
We fall into the kayaks, then off we paddle, amazingly in tune with each other. ‘Course, this boat was smaller than the aircraft carrier we attempted to maneuver around the Azorean lake.
Gazing down through the “glass bottom” (plexiglass), there’s a few sprouts of grassy weeds, and the sandy bottom is really, really close to the kayak.
Otherwise, it is as barren as the face of the moon.
Um… where’s the fish?
The young woman who came with us (our “guide”) said “ahhh… they’re… shy in the afternoons.”
Excuse me? A shy fish? Get a few bits of fish food or even somma that hamburger buns you were feeding us for lunch and have them appear for the tourists, maybe…?
Funny thing is, there’s not even algae in that lagoon. Okay, there’s a few bits of fauna floating around, but mostly, nothing. Eels? Nope. Clownfish? No. Angelfish? Nada. Sea turtles?? I guess Crush and pals were out somewhere on the Pineapple Express, ‘cause he sure wasn’t in this lagoon.
Someone grumbled at the guide about how we’d seen no signs of life and she said “really?” And had us paddle to the far side to pick up non-poisonous jellyfish. Gooey ole buggers the size of your hand and rather odd looking in a somewhat beautiful uglyish way. Sort of.
When you dropped them back into the water, they sulkily flipped over and moseyed away.
Then we paddled back to see three large, solitary, rather neon starfish. Were they alive? Were they painted concrete? Couldn’t really tell. They just sorta sat there.
Otherwise, the only life forms we saw were the wispy little weeds and some stoic reeds near the banks – nothing else seemed willing/able to exist in this oversize pond. Seriously… look at the depth of that water. That would be total work to drown in that amount of fluid.
As we got out, the guide produced a starfish (or a starfish exoskeleton, at least) and recommended we kiss it for seven years’ good luck. Hmmm.
Not convinced seven years of good luck is worth getting my gastro-intestinal tract that close to this dubious water source (especially after signing away every legal right I have unto eternity), so I pretended to buss the critter.
Sweet blessed relief, got the life jacket off and the bazoombas back on the correct side of my body.
We walked back to the dock, rather than wait for someone to get the golf cart to drive us.
ExaminingMisadventures 