Being escorted back to the resort by boat definitely made us feel like prisoners who made a break for it and got nabbed. We were gone for seven hours. There’s was an alcatrazzy vibe of, ‘Nice try…‘ as the Front Desk warden checked us back in to our old hut. Hut 39.

We slid the sliding glass door shut like a cell door and absorbed the impact of being back. We unpacked.

It was ridiculous. Crushing. But also totally energizing somehow. We didn’t collapse on the bed. No fetal position thumb in mouth. We rallied. We got dressed and sprayed down with Off! cologne and headed to dinner.

The two of us strutted proudly into the dining area where a few other couples nodded with squinted eyes. It seemed our fellow inmates appreciated and respected our desperate effort — but were probably also relieved to witness the outcome of an escape attempt without going through the motions.

We sat down at the table and took note of a big mosquito lounging in our butter on the table. We ordered up a healthy $200+ dinner of vanilla fish, weird chemical salad, and squishy pasta glop. Drank two bottles of Beringer wine too. (the wife is a lightweight btw).

And for the first time in a couple days, we started to feel pretty good about stuff. It was like getting hit in the head with a rock. That initial foggy moment of, ‘That’s didn’t hurt… I’m not hurt. I just feel dizzy or something… Good dizzy. Something ain’t right but I’m okay. I hear birds. Do you hear birds?’

Somehow the acceptance of the honeymoon being a definite disaster made everything lighter. The dark clouds over our heads dissipated. Win or lose. It’s always a relief when a war is over.

I no longer was burdened with the impossible task of somehow making things righter. She was no longer bogged down wondering about other options. We were stuck like two mosquitoes in butter. And it really wasn’t all that bad. It really started to get kind of funny. There was laughter again.

We drunkenly headed back to our hut and noticed the rain had stopped too.

As soon as we got back, the wife went into a tizzy and stripped off all her clothes and immediately jumped in the water. (It was kind of a big deal because she’s scared of fish touching her. And there were lots of sting rays around. In the dark it’s even a bigger deal.) Splash. I took off all my clothes too and jumped in. Splash. We splashed around. I’d never been swimming naked in the ocean before and it was a nice first.

(I thought, these are the same waters that a naked Captain Cook may have swum around in from time to time. The same waters. The same view. I felt I was naked in history.)

Back inside the hut was fun — then we battened down the hatches and watched more Lost and accepted our situation. We set in to make the best of things. We had two more full days. Two more nights. We decided to do some activities rain or shine. I wanted to go scuba diving. Tank and everything. The wife wanted to get a massage at the ‘famous’ spa.

Also earlier in the night, our waitress who called me ‘Tave’ told us that it was a good thing we were back because on Tuesday night (our last night there) there would be “Tuesday Night Entertainment”. Whatever that meant.

It was strange to know that our involuntary last night at the resort would end with some kind of a party…

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