You read that correctly. I did almost drown! It was the closest near-death experience I’ve ever had. I’ll explain later.

Just realised I’ve not taken any pics of the buffet area. This is what it looks like anyway. Pretty ‘simple’ but it does what it needs to.

There’s a lot to choose from each day for food, so I’m definitely happy with that and despite how busy it gets, it’s never full.

Breakfast is from 8-10, lunch is from 12:30-14:30, snacks by the pool are from 10:30-12:00 and 15:30-17:30, then dinner is at 19:30-21:30.

After breakfast we went to the beach. It was so hot but Oscar and Casey insisted that we did..

I was looking for shells when I stumbled across this little thing. It was definitely a stone… But it looked suspiciously like a fossil of some sort. Is it me or does it resemble a skull?

Lunch time!

We’re building up to my near-death experience now.

So, today we went on a 3 hour boat trip to see the sea turtles. ‘100% guaranteed to see them’ we were told.

This boat trip had a few stops for swimming and visiting small beaches.

It all started off decent.. Until the boat circled back and picked up about 5 more people who didn’t have seats! Then it got over crowded and it meant that I didn’t have a seat since I moved to let them on and they put their feet where I was sitting. So annoying!

We were packed in like sardines on this boat. I’d rate it 2/10 just for that.

So our 100% guaranteed sighting did happen and we did see a sea turtle. A huge one as well!

But there were about 10 other boats of all sizes also scrambling for the best view and for their own 100% guaranteed sighting I guess.

Then we sped off through some caves, via some choppy waves. We went to the first swimming spot. Let me tell you about this part.

So I’d planned to take Casey off the boat with me to the little beach in the caves. But…

When I jumped in and didn’t feel the bottom (yes, I’m aware it’s the sea, but we were told it was shallow), there was no way I would take Casey in that with me.

I should have known from the first moment when I panicked from not being able to touch the bottom after bombing in from the boat. I swam to the shore and the sea bed was huge smooth slippery rocks so there was no standing without coming out the water completely and up onto the shore. But by the time I’d arrived, we had to turn back and swim to the back of the boat to get back onboard. The boat was facing us, so we had to swim all the way back. And it got deep quick.

For some reason, half way across, my legs just gave up and it felt like they were numb with zero feeling and no coordination at all. Once again, panic set in and I was struggling. I was doing the typical thing most drowning people do, bobbing up and down gasping for air and taking in mouthfuls of seawater in the process. I managed to get to the side of the boat and signal to someone I needed help. They threw in the lifebuoy and I was instantly relieved.

I couldn’t believe it, I nearly actually drowned. There were so many people there as well and it was slightly embarrassing getting back on the boat as the guy who needed saving. But I had to do it.

Not sure if the water was just slightly too cold for me or what, but there was no moving my legs at that moment and I wasn’t floating.

Anyway we did manage to get off the boat properly at one of the other stops. The boat pulled right in this time and we walked off onto the beach.

I was still kind of traumatised from the nearly drowning thing so it definitely affected the rest of the trip.

We got back to dry land and had dinner. The dessert today was delicious!

Finished off the evening fending off mosquitoes by the pool as usual. Didn’t catch em all. Added 3 new red spots to my collection. T

Thanks mosquitoes 🦟.