I wonder about my motivation. When I am here with someone, I don’t seem to accomplish as much. It is more vacation-y. When left to my own devices, I seem to do more. My sampling for this theory is low, so I probably have made some errors using the scientific method
Catalina is gone now. She left this morning and just landed back in Houston. So I am without adult supervision. I used the opportunity to take a nap. After lunch I joined some friends and went snorkeling (because I have learned nothing about taking care of my ear.)
Our guide for this was Chris. He can be best described as the pool boy here, although his shirt claims he is a lifeguard. For Catalina’s purposes, he is her supplier of fresh coconuts. But since someone stole the resort’s ladder, he is getting easy ones that are too young. He is also sketchy looking and acts creepy. He hits on all the women. I think he is under the impression we are swingers. (We are not.) His eyes are perpetually bloodshot and he is rather gaunt. You can make your own conclusions.
Chris swam us out, but he stayed over the shallow part of the water, all filled with identical seaweed that I did not want to touch. Pretty boring overall. Greg then suggested going to the deeper part. We went off and it was much nicer. At the very least, there was no fear of menacing seaweed. Unfortunately Chris had almost literally latched himself to the only girl in this excursion. He was always dragging her around on the swim. And while we were going deeper, he took her towards a bay where there was a little in-water cave/cove. He started talking about how couples come here to have sex. She was very happy when Greg and I showed up to see how they were. We then headed back out to deeper water, saw a lion fish and then headed back.
I took another nap, checked in to my flight, had a hamburger, and then went on a jerk quest. (Not an expedition to find someone annoying.) Catalina and myself enjoy a jerk sauce made by The Real Canadian Superstore. So we were looking forward to trying some of the authentic spicy stuff. But, we are in a resort. So they have made tourist-grade jerk sauce. It is not spicy. So I talked to the chef, and she recommended a particular brand of jerk. So I left the resort, walked down the street to a chaotic grocery store and got some.
Now I shall get ready to join the remaining friends here for dinner.
2016-10-22 19:33

On Tuesday, our group loaded on to a bus and drove 40 minutes towards Ochos Rio. There we boarded a catamaran. It was a booze cruise with some snorkeling. Unfortunately it rained almost the entire time. But still, I got to float in the water. But after awhile, all the coral and plants look the same. On one of the attempts to dive deeper, I think I did something to my ear. My right inner-ear has been aching ever since. On the way back to the bus, the weather improved and it was quite lovely. By the end, there was a steady level of exhaustion for the rest of the day.
We did another excursion on Thursday to the Glistening Bay. It is a nearly unique location where the water, when agitated, glows. It sounds better than it actually is. The water does glow, but it is very subtle. It is only visible at night. Which is a good thing; if you saw it in the day you wouldn’t go into the water because it is so muddy. I am still glad we went; it was an experience. It looked more interesting to look at the wake of the boat.
No picture I took showed up very well. The paparazzi on board took some slightly better pictures, but they wanted $15 minimum for even a single one of them. They were not willing to negotiate on that either.
On another day, Catalina and I took a kayak out with the express purpose of getting off of it to swim. It was nice to float in deeper water without risk of seaweed. The resort is surrounded by a lot of shallow water filled with it, which is not enjoyable to swim in. It was going well, but at one point a resort staff person paddled out to try to rescue us. Somewhat embarrassing.
2016-10-22 19:00

We have decided to front load this vacation. In previous vacations, I would save activities for later and then run out of time to do them. Here we are doing many activities early.
Yesterday we went kayaking in the morning, although it was a bit windy for that.
In the afternoon we took a bicycle ride to a nearby beach and walked along that. The resort has daily bicycle tours, so we are getting those out of the way now.
This morning, we took another bicycle ride to a nearby limestone cave. We did a tour of it. It has a long history of hiding slaves and Spanish government. It was recently used as a nightclub until 1994. We saw snakes and bats.
Afterwards we went across the street for jerk chicken. The resort makes its jerk chicken for gringos, so it is not very good. No spice. The native ones are much more flavorful.
Unfortunately while I was in line to get the chicken, Catalina got hit by a cricket ball in the leg. We hunk a blood vessel burst so we are applying ice. Otherwise she is fine.
I need to catch up on sleep a bit, but otherwise we are having a great time.
2016-10-16 13:29

It is apparently inclement in Vancouver this weekend. Last night a storm moved through town; I slept through it and am not even sure it was real. I was inside the rest of the day and didn’t notice significant rain. The second storm should be more active and will happen overnight. That is more of a concern because my flight leaves in half an hour. The rest of the week looks like nothing but rain.
But as I remarked, I won’t be here to see it.
Off to Jamaica. Well, Toronto first. I plan to sleep as much as possible on this leg. Because I won’t sleep much when I’m in the Caribbean.
The airport was fairly easy to get to. There was a train two blocks from home that took us right here. Got through everything quickly and now we are just waiting to board. So far, I would recommend traveling from Vancouver.

I stopped going to the Running Room in Edmonton because I did not like their running club. It used to be good, but wasn’t anymore. On Wednesday evenings they were always doing hill training, and I just wanted to go for a run. On Sundays, they always had the same route and I was getting sick of it. So I joined United Cycle and had a much better time there.
However, there is no United Cycle in Vancouver. So I have to go back to the Running Room and progress from there. I was hoping it would be different, but it isn’t turning out that way. The Running Room near Stanley Park did not have a organized run today. Instead, they had people doing speed work, which involves doing a loop several times, quickly. That is not what I am looking for when I want to go out for an enjoyable run.
So I ran by myself, getting somewhat lost in Stanley Park. It was nice enough and I had a good time. But I worry that I am hurting myself. I should get off my high horse and run with other people, even if I don’t like the run itself. Otherwise, how am I going to meet new people and make friends?