island snorkeling

first, let me apologize for lack of updates; on Friday, the property manager decided to rearrange the internet routers because his internet connection wasn't fast enough for his liking on his computer located on the second floor opposite side of me. While his signal may be better, 3 of us on the 1st floor had no connection at all the whole weekend while he was screwing around with it, making me a not so happy camper. I use the internet daily for email, blogging, and most importantly, watching the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys play online via live web streams. Today he finally moved a router back over here so we have internet connection again. I didn't complain but let the owner know I really rely on the internet. Luckily the Cowboys game was national night game so I watched it on NBC, entertaining game despite the loss.
now onto the blog...

yesterday I accomplished a goal I've had since day 1 in Tamarindo: swim to the little island and back. It's maybe 200 meters from the beach at low tide. Swimming against the waves it felt much longer. I discovered you can swim quite far with just snorkeling gear since the snorkel allows you to maintain air in your lungs consistently, keeping your body afloat.
Later on as I was walking on the beach after the swim I realized I had forgotten one very important piece of snorkeling equipment: FINS!
I swam all that way without fins. Good thing I have big feet. I do not recommend this technique at all, even if it does burn more calories. Using fins would have cut the time of swimming by at least half.
It took about 30 minutes to reach the island and 15 back, swimming alongside the waves to a group of rocks on a piece of shore closer by.
I swam through some very cold dark water, probably meaning it was very deep, how deep I'd rather not know, but when I looked down through my mask all I saw was a deep blue abyss.

Getting on the actual island upon arriving was a chore all to itself. Strong waves pound through the shallow canals of hard rock and corral, then flow just as hard right back out, creating strong little currents.
Some of the rocks or coral have little pockets where these nasty spiky little plants live. I assume the hard needles are there to protect itself from predators. I landed on one surfing one time and had to pluck the needle out from the bottom of my foot.
These little plants make it hard to get a firm grip or footing on the rocks you need to hold onto to avoid being pummeled into the rocky land mass by the waves. I chose to get a few scratches from hugging the rocks rather than risk my head being slammed into a boulder.

I finally made it to the island and walked around on the seashell, rock, and sand filled land. I was told by Steve it was a good place to find big seashells so I found a nice big white conch shell, put it in my one pocket on my bathing suit and brought it back to Sarah.

The snorkeling was amazing for the Pacific. Great clarity, which can be rare. I could see clearly to a depth of at least 20 feet. When I first arrived in Tamarindo, with all the rain and the clouds over the Pacific, I couldn't see a few feet with a mask on. Conditions were perfect. Clear sun, no rain in quite some time, great snorkeling.

I saw all kinds of fish, small neon blue ones, flat grey and yellow ones, schools of light blue sparkley fish with sharp looking tails that swam right by me, black fish with yellow highlighter tipped tails, and one fish that really stood out, a fat bright yellow fish with small fins. It reminded me of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.
The experience was almost like snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

After about a half hour of avoiding being pounded into hard corral I decided to swim back. I picked perhaps the unfriendliest piece of land to get back on; a tide pool of rocks and large crashing waves. In between waves I made several steps/swim strokes to a larger rock, grabbed it and braced for the wave to come in and rip out, then repeated. This whole process took about 20 minutes. Quite a workout.

I told some of the locals about swimming there and they thought I was crazy. I've heard of people paddleboarding and arm boarding out there before but not swimming. I'm sure plenty others have though.
Paddleboarding is like standing on a huge surfboard with a paddle. Arm paddling or whatever it's called is like being on a long skinny torpedo shaped surfboard which you kneel and use you arms to row your way.

I've seen some locals go around the river mouth and come back with lobsters. This is my next goal. Diving for lobsters. What could get better than a free fresh lobster dinner you caught and cooked yourself???

On the way to the beach Sarah and I ran into some Iguanas. He was by far the largest I've seen since I've been here. Looked like a tiny Kimodo dragon. He stuck around long enough for us to take some snapshots of him.

His smaller friend. 

Sarah made some friends while I was snorkeling. 

They liked to play fetch with a coconut.