Clint and Nats are younger than me, so for once I wasn’t the youngest passenger. Despite this fact Clint still presented me with a rainbow bracelet that he found on the beach which I now wear proudly – how many people have a bracelet found in the water by the world’s twenty-sixth best life saver?
The day’s big event was clearly leaving the boat and saying goodbye to Jacqui, Roy, Mike, the crew, and several other passengers. In order to maintain good mental health I bottled all emotion up inside and said brief goodbyes to everyone before joining the remaining passengers for a taxi ride to the hotel and then on to the beach. Most of the group surfed while I watched the waves hoping to see some spectacular wipeouts (there was a “learn to surf” school nearby with many students, but sadly most crashes were slow and un-spectacular), and after a few hours and some pescado for lunch we piled into a van that already contained eight passengers. Undeterred the driver continued to pick up folks from along the road until twenty-two individuals were sitting on top of one another with the van door open to allow excess body parts to stick out. Nats and I figured the record capacity is probably thirty given that there must occasionally be groups of very tiny people that visit the island, but in the normal-sized world it’s tough to imagine squeezing anyone or anything else into that vehicle. After more of Ted’s potent cocktails and torrents of rain we all enjoyed dinner at the hotel, and sadly tomorrow brings the plane that will take Audrey and I back to LA and away from the whales and our many new friends.