Puerto Rico: Day 5 of 5

Our flight home on Tuesday was not until 3 pm so I planned on making full use of my time.

I was up early and organized my clothes before heading down to the fitness center right at 6 am when it opened to do a hard one-hour on the lifecycle. I watched an episode of Halo (Paramount+) season 2 on my phone. Good distraction. Then I met Mark at the steps where he got my photo yesterday. One can enter the water there and swim across to Condado Beach or under the bridge into the lagoon.

I took Mark to all the best fish viewing areas. He was amazed at the variety in such shallow water. I just wore my swimsuit and goggles but had my GoPro tucked in at my waist and had a pull buoy so Mark could follow me easily.

I had switched from my shark to Manatee earring (I got it last year when I went to the Manatee center in West Palm Beach). We first swam across to Condado Beach (it was less than 400 yards to cross the channel).

I didn’t take a lot of photos as I had met most of the fish already.

We swam under the bridge and I collected a sea star for Mark to pose with. We swam out into the lagoon and I saw an SUP rider in the distance, I swam close enough to yell and ask if he had seen any manatee today and he pointed towards the East so we headed that way.

I was about a hundred yards ahead of Mark when I spotted one in shallow (? 5 or 6 feet) water eating some seagrass. I took a quick photo and called him over. But this manatee (maybe because it was by itself?) was much more shy than the ones the previous time and it quickly came up to breathe and then swam quickly away from me and down into much deeper water where I lost side of it.

I did get one more photo as it was about to breathe and noted that it had some big remora attached. I felt so bad when Mark got there just in time to see a vague shadow disappear.

My guide the previous day had told me the best place to see the manatee was across the lagoon near a big sign on a building. Mark and I swam over there but didn’t see any.

We swam back to Condado Beach and caught our breath. I showed Mark the spot to head for so he would get to the stairs but I did a bigger circle of the channel and saw 2 sea turtles and a Chocolate Chip Sea Cucumber but no more manatee.

With the race (and weekend) now 2 days in the past there was NOT a long line at the restaurant and I enjoyed another big, relaxing breakfast while reading my Kindle. I thought it interesting that they had a “gluten-free” toaster…

I figured I had an hour to relax by the pool before having to do my final packing and checkout. I downloaded the photos of Mark from the GoPro to share with him and then just relaxed. I visited the iguanas again and also saw a cute smaller lizard.

At Yoga today I showed my manatee video to my instructor, April. But I realized I had forgotten to take my usual vacation selfie of me doing a Warrior 2 pose in a scenic setting. I could have done one with the iguana and ocean in the background!!!

I listened to the Beach Boys while packing… 🙂

It was only a 10-minute drive to the very nice airport. I am glad that Jaime had let us know about the need to get our luggage all checked by the USDA before heading to check-in. I was VERY glad to have TSA pre-check as it took me about 10 minutes for all the security but Mark and Mo took 20 or 30 minutes longer.

The flight was on time (it would be almost 4 hours back to JFK due to headwinds). Only 5 minutes after takeoff we were off the island and just ocean and sky for the rest of our flight. I made an effort to nap as I knew we had an almost 3-hour layover at JFK.

When we finally reached Long Island the plane headed east a little (? fire island) and then headed back west over Long Island to JFK over land.

I treated Mark and Maureen to an Italian dinner and then did a one-mile walk to stretch out my legs and back before the last flight.

I texted with my kid today and they alerted me to !!!!!!

They are being released in 2 days but I pre-ordered a bunch! I am still wearing my manatee earring 🙂

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My next trip isn’t for 4 weeks but I may have to drive a long way south or north to get to a sunny spot for the upcoming Eclipse!