A Rainbow of Experiences

The world is a beautiful place you know, especially the tropics, and full of glorious, shimmering colours. I can still barely believe the range of them I’ve seen over the past few days.

The first day I spewed up a rich, warm chocolate-coloured pool of brown vomit, probably as a result of all the coffee I had at breakfast. Clinging to the side of the boat, it was rather nice to see it waft and glisten in the sea before melting away. Sadly, there were no “carrots” (bits of stomach-lining), but the occassional miscellaneous green bit made for interesting pondering and texture.

Of course, once I was on land in the evening I felt much better, so had pasta with cheese and vegetable oil (it served instead of butter) for dinner. The vibrant orange that poured forth from me the following day, like juice spilling from a freshly-cut mango, was almost unreal and contrasted rather pleasingly with the deep aquamarine of the Caribbean Sea.

Armed with hindsight, I can no guess that strawberry yoghurt might not have been the ideal thing to pump into the protected reef, where you can’t even wear sunscreen unless it’s biodegradable to protect the wildlife. Still, I had my fifth kind of tablet by this stage, so was really hoping that I might have made a breakthrough. I now carry with me Stugeron, Kwells, Sea Legs, Damarine and (my favourite) Vomisin. Sadly, the Vomisin was just as effective as the rest; it made me very tired, but sod all else. Still, watching the waves of salmon pink sweeping across the waves was rather soothing.

So we’re on day four of water-based adventures, and you can imagine my delight in anticipating a nice, calm cavern dive* in fresh water, straight from the land, with a surface interval (gap between two dives where your body tries to recover) on nice solid earth.

What, you mean to tell me that’s not a sufficient rainbow for you? That one band remains unrepresented. Not to fear; my body was one step ahead of you. Very proud at not being sick, I hadn’t really noticed how cold I was getting in the water until I emerged with bright blue lips and fingernails, framed by an expanse of grey skin. You know, you feel kind of odd walking along a beach in 31-degree heat between people in nothing but bikinis whilst wearing two fleeces and multiple tops, desperately trying to fend off the hypothermia. Still, makes a nice change from vomitting, and gives muscles beside my stomach a good workout.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Saf

* That’s a cavern, not a cave. Definitely not a cave. We’re not allowed in caves. And yes, we could see daylight at every stage of the dive; it’s just that sometimes it happened to be weaker than the beams of our torches and a little hard to pick out.