catalina

much earlier this year rip messed up and i asked him to make it up to me. anything he wanted. whatever he thought was appropriate. he decided on a trip to catalina (cause we had bought groupon boat tickets earlier). of course, there was more drama before we went (like when and why we were going at all). but eventually we went a couple weekends ago with g and her husband. ...i know. i actually hadn't given it much thought, but t brought it up "wasn't supposed to be just you and him?" and yeah, it was. but i guess i figured that if we didn't go with g and bill, and soon, we probably just wouldn't and g/bill prob wouldn't either and we'd all end up wasting out tickets. anyway. it was fine. i mean, i don't know that i would really count this as "making it up to me" since it was mostly g and i that made it happen, but oh well, he's been pretty great lately.

descanso beach

after we got to the island we had lunch and walked around a bit. then we went kayaking starting from descanso beach. no pictures tho, since we didn't have a waterproof camera. :( which is a real shame cause the water is crazy clear! the scenery wasn't very varied, but it was nice to get out onto the water and be able to see the island from another perspective.

very few cars, mostly golf carts

later g and i went snorkeling in lover's cove while rip and bill stayed on shore. she had done it before and i was very excited to try it (it's on my bucket list, after all). i actually had a terrible time of it. rip had warned me about it before but i figured that since i'm a mouth breather anyway it would do okay. what i didn't realize was that it wasn't so much the physical part that was hard, it was the mental aspect. altho i knew it was totally safe, i just could not get over the fact that i was breathing underwater! it didn't help that for the first 10minutes or so i wore the mask wrong. i hadn't really looked that mask so i wore it like a ski mask, above the nose. rip eventually pointed it to me that i was supposed to wear it over the nose. even later after that, annie showed me how to get a good fit on the goggles. they still leaked a little, but it was much better.

now that i was wearing my equipment properly i had a physically easier time of it. but mentally i still couldn't quite get the hang of it. eventually i ended up swimming with my fingers on the lenses of my goggles, which helped. i think maybe so i wouldn't "forget" i was wearing a snorkel. i also tried to stay near people cause that made me feel more comfortable. even so, i would was still hyperventilating and screaming every time a wave came over me or when fish got too close (some big ones had pretty scary sharp teeth!). lol. even tho i didn't have a particularly good time, i would definitely do it again. the scariness is all mental, so it was worth it to see the fish in their "natural environment".

view of the casino from descanso beach

the next day we went on a bus tour that took us up thru the mountains and to the airport. we saw a few buffalo and watched an airplane take off. i like that catalina (well, avalon anyway, which is the main [only?] city on the island) is so small. i did everything i wanted to do, and didn't feel rushed at all.

after we got back we went to flemings for their happy hour and rip finally had their amazing burger. a great closer to a very relaxing two days.