How we spent our autumn vacation

How I spent my autumn vacation

By Rick Seley

Where do I start? It’s been a wild couple of weeks since my last column (not to mention the months since my last blog post). Do I tell you about the international travel? Maybe we should talk about the eight-foot shark I almost ran in to (literally), the awesome people we met or discuss the scumbag who tried to break into my house while we were gone.

OK, you twisted my arm, I’ll tell the whole story.

I made the mistake of starting my last column by announcing that we were going on vacation. It never occurred to me that some gutless scumbag would take that as an invitation to attempt to invade our home and take our stuff. I live and publish my newspaper column in a small desert town where meth labs are listed in the yellow pages; I don't know what I was thinking.

Sometimes I forget that there are soulless jerks whose tiny brains can’t seem to grasp to concept that it’s not OK to go uninvited into someone else’s home and take their shit. Fortunately, I did remember that it’s a good idea to keep a ninety-pound dog in the house to discourage soulless jerks from entering my house uninvited. Amazing how well that works,so no real harm was done.

As I mentioned in my last column, Sandra and I recently celebrated our 25^th anniversary by traveling to the Bahamas to “swim with the dolphins.” Sandra found an excursion on the Internet that suggested the we would be spending several days as members of a small private group swimming in with dolphins in the wild with “The Dolphin Whisperer.”

To someone like Sandra who is very attuned to her spiritual side and has a deep respect for Mother Nature; spending a week living communally with a dozen like-minded strangers bonding with dolphins all the while expanding our spiritual horizons is a dream vacation.

For a beer-drinking carnivore like me who is spiritually moved by almost anything with whipped cream on it; a proper getaway on a tropical island involves relaxing on the beach, watching other people’s daughter’s walking by in bikinis that I would never want my own daughters to wear while drinking exotic rum drinks.

For the record, while our trip didn’t turn out to be the dolphin hugging nature-fest that Sandra envisioned or the rum-soaked bikini parade that I was looking for, we both had a great time and it was easily the best vacation we’ve ever had.

We stayed in a small bungalow next to an awesome private house on a beach with a breathtaking view. That’s cool for a couple of reasons; first because it gives me an excuse to use the word bungalow (an awesome word that so rarely comes up in daily conversation), next it was just the two of us so Sandra’s freakishly loud snoring didn’t bother anyone and there was no bathroom so I got to pee outside in the dark (like using the word bungalow, something I enjoy but don’t get to do very often).

We spent most of the daylight hours on the ocean snorkeling off a great boat in some of the most beautiful water I’ve ever seen. We saw rays, giant sea turtles, tropical fish of all shapes and colors; I even think I might have found Nemo.

One day Sandra and I were snorkeling a particularly beautiful reef teaming with amazing wildlife. At one point Sandra surfaced and asked me, “Did you see that shark?”

What I thought was, “Am I screaming and swimming in my own shit toward the boat?” But what I said was, “Really, a shark? Wow, I missed it.” That’s how you stay married for 25 years.

Shortly thereafter she pointed out a large stingray lying on the bottom about 20 feet below us. Curious, I dove down to get a closer look at the stingray; about 12 feet down I decided I was close enough to the stingray and rounded my dive back toward the surface.

As I looked up I found myself looking at an eight-foot shark about 15 feet in front of me. As he turned his head and looked at me Sandra later told me she heard me shout, “Oh shit!”

I surfaced and asked in the most calm and manly voice I could manage, “Are you ready to head back to the boat Sweetheart?” Instead of laughing at me and saying, "I told you so", she just smiled and said “Sure.” Another reason we’re still married after 25 years!

More stories to come.