6.11.2010

#15 swimming in the gulf of mexico

jeff and i went to naples, florida for our second anniversary last weekend, and i experienced a veritable cornucopia of firsts. i plan to drag them out in several posts so i don't go three weeks without writing again. 


swimming in the gulf of mexico was a delight. it was a completely new experience - utterly different from swimming in the atlantic, where there are creatures that sting, or dipping my toe in the pacific, which tends to be approximately 13 degrees. 


the gulf's water was 83.5 degrees (i'm not exaggerating - there was a sign on the beach) and the color of my favorite mini cooper (that's a dusty light blue in case you didn't know). we swam out and sat on noodles and bobbed in the swells like little apples in a sloshy bucket. occasionally, i'd scrape my feet on the ocean floor and find sand dollars wedged in the fine white sand. living sand dollars! neat. we bobbed for so long that we got sunburned. less than a week later, jeff looks like he has a touch of leprosy with his shirt off.


i also saw a manatee from the shore. it surfaced twice. arabella informed me that the myth of the mermaid was rooted in people seeing manatees. i couldn't help but think of how fat that animal is - what if ariel had been obese? (i just googled "fat ariel mermaid" to see if anyone has drawn a fat ariel, and one of the pictures that came up was an ariel at disneyland. poor thing. she's not really fat, but who would want their picture to appear when "fat" is searched?) 


in conclusion, i loved this experience. a lot. 


an obvious note: bp's spill hasn't wafted over to naples just yet, so we weren't floating around in oil. 

2 comments:

  1. first of all, happy anniversary. second of all, i'm glad you made that note because that was my first question when i read the title.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yay for the unspoiled remnants of the gulf of mexico. you just got a little taste of my childhood summers! but in my neck of the woods, there were certainly creatures that could sting you, not to mention tar and under-toe. so glad you had such a great anniversary!!

    ReplyDelete