The 26th was Charlies 32nd birthday and we decided to celebrate with SeaBird Sailing. I was in contact with the company and really loved what they were going for.
Just a chill morning sail and some snorkeling. They had hammocks on the boat and they took tons of pictures.
I'm in.
It just so happened that they had the option of a birthday cake included with the morning sail.
Um, hell yes I want the birthday cake.
One of the first communications I had with the owner of the company was "Please make sure everyone wears sunscreen, even if its an overcast day, please wear sunscreen and bring it with you for reapplication."
I don't believe in sunscreen so I told everyone else about it and they all made sure to lather up.
The morning of Charlies birthday and our big day out on the sailboat, where we would be in the water and snorkeling with fish, in the ocean and using sailboat bathrooms,
my body was like "Hey, you know what would be fun? If we started your period! Party!"
and my brain was like "Ugh."
Heather and Aidan took Dramamine because apparently sometimes these super-fun-havers get seasick and we were off!
We strolled down the beach, sort of knowing where we were going and kind of camped out in the general region we were thinking it was in.
We all just kind of looked at each other and kicked around some sand, when we saw a lady carrying a birthday cake come walking toward us.
"SeaBird?" I called out.
"How'd you know? I'm Amy!" She yelled back.
She was clearly American and quite obviously midwestern with her adorable accent.
She had moved down 4 years ago with her daughters and loved Coco.
Her one daughter was working on getting her Master Diver Certification and her other daughter, volunteered at a vet.
Charlie and I immediately jumped on this.
"Yes, there are so many strays here!"
"They think that fixing their animals takes the virility out of their male dogs and this is also a very Catholic country, so many of them don't even think about it.
My daughter helps with catching the strays, spaying or neutering them, they give them antibiotics for 2 days and then they send them back out."
We would have asked a million more questions but our little dingy was coming in and it was time for us to go and sail.
She gave us the rundown and we had to surrender our shoes, she assured us we would get them back.
There was another 2 ladies with us on the boat, from Atlanta, and they were wonderful and super sociable.
The 2 ladies and Janet and Heather went out with them and Charlie, Aidan and I were next.
We rowed out to and amazing sailboat, resplendent with 2 hammocks on the back side and cushions and pillows everywhere we looked. I snagged a spot on the front on a little pillow with Janet next to me and we were asked what we wanted to drink before we could even sit down.
Janet and I ordered sangria and waited patiently for our drinks.
Charlie and Aidan both went with Mimosas.
As Janet and I sat back and snuggled with our drinks, we finally realized we were missing one our troupe.
Heather was laying face down next to the boat driver. She would not move a muscle for the remainder of the sail.
"Yeah, shes feeling pretty sea sick right now. Honey, you alright?" Aidan shouted down to her while casually drinking his mimosa.
She responded with no movement.
The Dramamine had zero effect on her and we all felt super bad.
But I mean, not so bad that we stopped drinking and whooping it up.
Charlie recounted that he had been seasick when working off shore for 2 days and it was the worst 2 days of his life.
Aidan had been seasick on an all day fishing trip in the San Juans.
"Heather, at least its just for like 3 hours. Right?" We called down to her.
She responded with no movement.
Now that we all had drinks in hand and were ready for our sailing trip we could get moving!
It was a nice slow sail and we struck up a conversation with the ladies on the boat.
They were super nice and Aidan found out that one of them was just about to retire from Verizon perhaps, or some other telecommunications company and they both nerded out for the remainder of the trip.It was an overcast day which was nice because the sun wasn't aggressively beating down on us. We sat back and took in all the beautiful views, they explained what things were and the names of all the inlets and little, tiny islands.
It was gorgeous and one of my favorite memories from the trip.
Sipping on my Mimosa, chatting with Janet and taking in all the amazing scenery.
It was marvelous.
They brought out a little fruit plate with the best pineapple I've ever had and some watermelon, which I'm sure was just as delicious. I don't particularly like watermelon and neither does Janet, so we fought like slow moving drunk gorillas over the pineapple.
"You know I don't like watermelon!"
"You know I don't either!"
"Stop eating all the pineapple!"
"Charlie get your hands out of the pineapple!"
We aggressively hand slapped each other, until the other 2 ladies on the boat casually wandered over.
We had to act civilized while they were around, but still jostled each other for the last few pieces and made sure no one else ate any of it.
This seems like a good time to mention that none of us had eaten anything yet that day.
We were 400 mimosas deep about to Action Jackson jump into the deep blue in search of marine life and were all feeling pretty tipsy.
I should also mention, I cant swim very well and I am embarrassingly terrified of snorkeling.
Seems safe, right?
After our casual boat ride, I briefly thought about just chilling on the boat with Heather, and by chilling on the boat with Heather, I mean talking to her unresponsive body and drinking next to her.
I decided I would give the snorkeling a try.
The last time I snorkeled was in Hawaii in 2009. It was supposed to be a romantic nighttime snorkel with my newly engaged fiance. He excitedly strapped on his flippers, called over his shoulder, "You ready, babe!" and jumped in happily.
I messed around with my flippers, not having an idea how to walk with them on, put my face mask on, finally got out to waist high water, put my face in and had a panic attack.
He made me practice in the pool the next day for like 5 hours.
So, with that in mind I leapt in the water after all my friends.
I should mention that Charlie was a lifeguard in high school, has his PADI certification and was a commercial diver in the Gulf of Mexico for 2 years. So, I was fully putting my trust in the birthday boy to not let me drown.
I had him throw me down a mask, but really didn't want to fuck around with flippers and then he yelled out as an afterthought, "Who needs a noodle?"
I leapt out of the water like a dolphin, my hand shooting into the sky.
"I need a noodle! Right here! Noodle me!"
That noodle was the reason I didn't drown.
Thank you, little noodle.
I watched as everyone put their masks on and get to it.
I called up to Heather and asked if she was going to get in on the action.
She responded by not moving.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I had my noodle, someone drowning was very bad for business so they would make sure I didn't drown, and I was like 10 feet away from the boat and not that far from shore.
I put my face mask on and instantly started to hyperventilate.
I ripped it off.
Heather was suddenly beside me, also with a noodle I might add.
We both appeared to be struggling with separate demons.
Her seasickness but want to have a good time, my need to breathe through my nose and not out my mouth but desperation to fit in with my cool friends!
We both looked at each other and dove in, determined to overcome.
I regulated my breathing finally and was having a good time, trying to find fish but not get too close to the rocky shore when a thought hit me.
Whats going on in my nether regions? Am I attracting sharks by the thousands right now? On Finding Nemo, those sharks were crazed just by drop of blood.
This is real shit! Am I about to die?
I flung my head out of the water and realized there were people on the shore. I stuck my face back in and desperately regretted not getting those stupid flippers and aggressively paddled to shore with the help of my noodle.
We wandered around on a gorgeous white sandy beach resplendent with these amazing smelling white flowers, our boat guide said they were a relative of plumeria, and we all fell in love with Coco once again.
We rolled around in the sand and played with hermit crabs galore and generally were giddy in love with the Guanacoste region.
Heather was laying motionless on the beach.
"Hey how are you feeling?"
She responded by not moving.
They drove the dingy over to us and one of the guides stated that it was now time to party.
I thought to myself, what have we already been doing for 2 hours?
When we got back on sail boat Janet and I took our usual seats and they started asking us if we wanted Chile Guerrero shots.
Charlie was like "Hell yeah we want those! Make sure my wife gets one too!"
"No I dont want that."
Somehow, I got one and we all took shots. It was like hot, peppery rubbing alcohol.
We kept taking chile shots and Janet actually took one with the vodka they used to make the shots with, which is a local liquor made from sugar cane.
The verdict was that by itself, it was rubbing alcohol.
We called down to Heather to see if she wanted to join the 4 of us in another celebratory birthday Geurrero shot.
She responded by not moving.
They brought out a delicious whipped cream and fruit chocolate cake that said "Happy Birthday Charley" even though the lady said she told the bakery 3 times how to spell his name and they sang him a rousing Feliz Cumpleanos a ti. We all ate the cake with our hands and had more shots and more mimosas and more shots and more shots until finally we were chatting with the boat owner and he told us his whole life story, which was incredibly compelling.
We made our way back to the beach and had one more shot for the road.
I had not attracted sharks and was feeling good and drunk. Mission accomplished.
They got Heather off the boat as fast as they could and we were ready to get up and get on the second dingy journey when I stood up to gather up all our stuff.
It suddenly hit me that I had been out on the water all day, with no food except for a slice of cake and all the booze I could drink plus I was losing blood rapidly.
I felt myself start to keel and bent over and put my head between my legs.
The boat guide started speaking rapid spanish and the next thing I know I am in the dingy on my hands and knees with them dumping copious amounts of seawater on my neck and Aidan rubbing my back.
I was hyperventilating and about to pass out and the one who should have been rubbing my back was yucking it up with Janet and laughing hysterically.
Way to go Charlie!
I managed to remain conscious until we got onto land and threw myself out of the boat and crawled through the surf to sit next to Heather, who's lifeless body was now slowly reviving with some water, like actual water, not vodka.
I laid there for a few minutes and sucked down water until I felt ok.
Whatever had just happened to me was horrible.
"At least you didn't feel like that the whole time."
"Oh my goodness Heather, you are such a trooper. That was awful. Thank you for not making us turn around immediately."
We walked home and napped the morning off.
Our plan was to get ready and look nice and go across the street to a nice restaurant and maybe go see what the nightlife was in the off season. We showered, I washed my hair for the first time since being there and I even tried to straighten.
It curled up like, 3 minutes later.
I even put makeup on.
Which would eventually sweat off.
We all looked as dapper as we could muster in 100% humidity and walked on over to this fancy restaurant.
Before we went on vacation Charlie had called Verizon and told them that we were going out of the country and they said "Great, lets sign you up for the international plan and when you turn your phone on it will just cost 10$ per day, per phone. Data included. So, Charlie would turn on his phone one day and I would turn mine on the next. I facetimed my mom and Susie with the kids and browsed insta before bed and checked work emails.
Well, Charlie called Verizon, for whatever reason and realized that my phone number was not associated with this 'international plan' and the 2 days I had my phone on had accrued us a 1,500$ bill, so far.
As we were walking over there he was irate and in a total panic.
"I cant believe you weren't on wifi when you face timed, we cant afford a 1500 bill, this is insane!" Just going off, and I guess it was a big deal, but really, I was highly doubting they would actually charge us that amount. People are stupid and do stuff like this all the time on vacation.
Verizon was obviously going to refund us.
He was getting all worked up which made me super worked up and instead of enjoying a nice dinner outside at sunset, what we actually got was a strained, bug infested dinner.
The bugs are huge and literally were flocking to every spare inch of our skin.
Charlie lingered in the lobby for a bit, still on the phone with Verizon, and finally came out to sit with us and apologized to me for being a little over the top.
Verizon had said they would refund us, thankfully and it wasn't my fault because we both thought my phone was on their too.
I have a hard time letting things go, so I was on my 3rd adult beverage before I unfrosted myself.
We were eaten alive and charged for bottle water.
We tried to do a nice adult vacation evening but, ended up running back to the hotel and jumping in the pool after we sweat all of our makeup off and paid way too much for pina coladas.
Being an adult is highly overrated.
Cheers.
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