Go kayaking

“10 minutes into the tour and I’m already tired, but I push through. My friend is already making light jokes about killing me when this is over, but I laugh it off. The view is gonna be worth it, right? 30 minutes in, the tide starts to pick up. I tell my friend we’d better take a break, as I’m starting to get seasick. To my surprise, she tells me she’s getting sick too and we should ask the guide what to do. That’s when the guide tells us there’s not much he can do and we should paddle back as he continues the tour with the others. We then turn back, praying to God we can make it back before getting seriously sick. Spoiler alert, we couldn’t. About 5 minutes after that we had to stop so my friend could throw up. And every 5 minutes after that we had to stop again to try and put ourselves together. It took us 1h30 to get back. By the end of that we weren’t even stopping to vomit anymore, my friend would just turn her face to the side and puke while paddling.”

“While I did bring my phone for photographic purposes (hey, blog content isn’t going to create itself), I made it my goal to use it as little as possible so I could soak in my surroundings. I felt the warm sun on my skin. I heard a girl squeal with excitement, telling her mom, “I caught a fish! I caught a fish!” And I watched a couple paddleboarding with the kind of balance I will never possess (I have a strict no sports that require grace policy).”

“When you’re gliding on the water, it doesn’t look like much. But when you’re unable to commit to lifting your electric toothbrush the next morning, you realize paddling works your arms, shoulders, back, and core in sneaky ways. I woke up with a pleasant ache in my upper arms, my core, and what I’m pretty sure is my T5 vertebra (yes, I Googled that too—kayaking apparently also strengthens your need to fact-check anatomy).”