We woke up on a drizzly Monday morning psyched we each had something to do. I arranged to scuba dive and the wife scheduled a massage/manicure situation at the ‘spa’. We agree to meet by the pool when we’re done.

I show up at the diving shack at 10AM and meet Phillipe Pierre or Jacques Francoise or Jacques Phillipe or something. Whatever. A French frogman. My dive guide. He didn’t seem all that happy to be taking only one tourist out. I’m thinking when it’s not the rainy season he probably brings em out by the boatload. But on this rainy Monday it was just me and him.

I told him I’d only been diving once before like 20 years ago in Barbados but back then it was just some rummy guy who only went down like 10 feet. He whatevers my story and hands me a damp wetsuit (short pants) and tells me to try it on. I ask him if I should wear my bathing suit underneath and he tells me I can do what I want.

I decided to keep my red baggy bathing suit on because I didn’t like the idea that I’d be laying my naked nuts down in some “wet” suit where some dude the day before had his naked nuts and since he did that it’s just been hung up damp all stray pubes or whatever hanging out ew.

I start pulling the wetsuit on over my swim suit but the frenchman just stripped off his shorts and underwear and changed directly in front of me. All naked out and everything. Full blast dick out. Manly locker room style. I felt like a dork tucking my bunchy bathing suit down into my wetsuit. Like the kid in elementary school who tucked his shirt into his underwear.

We head out in his boat to the reef and he tells me how the dive is going to go. He goes over the rules. The hand signals. How to de-pressurize your ears. He said we’d be going down like 20-25 feet which actually seemed like alot. Like, “If I freak out will I be able to get to the surface without drowning out or getting the bends or whatever?” alot.

We drop anchor. Strap on our tanks. Jump in the water. And I test my breathing thing. It seemed to be working okay. Seemed like air. Sorta. Felt weird. Mask seemed tight. The sea was kind of rough too due to all the rain. He reminds me of our hand signals. Thumbs up is head to the surface. Thumbs down is descend. Okay is index thumb circle.

As we’re half way down the rope he gives me the Okay? sign. I give him a thumbs up. Then I remember thumbs up means go up and I change that to the okay signal. He rolled his eyes. I was nervous.

I had to keep popping my ears from the increase in pressure. One of them didn’t want to pop. Half-wawy down the rope I was sure it was gonna blow out my ear drum. I felt like I couldn’t breathe either like I wasn’t getting enough air or too much air. We kept going deeper. I couldn’t even see the roof of the ocean anymore. I honestly felt like I was going to have a full on panic attack. Double thumbs up style.

But then I concentrated on my breathing. My ear popped okay. I calmed down. And we started swimming around in this reef that was friggin unbelievable. Like a giant cavern or cave of a reef. Gigantic. I saw colorful fishies! Turtles! Like from Nemo! All sorts of weirdo creatures! Schools of em! A squid! Colorful coral! It was like landing on another planet.

We stayed down there for like 45 minutes. Whenever there was something to see up close, the frenchmen would pull me over and point at it. He was like an excellent guide who kept checking on me and all that. When all the fish were around me I felt like a fish god. I was like, ‘I am your fish god now! Fish bitches! Captain Cook never saw nuttin like this!’

When we followed the rope back up to the surface I was kind of bummed. I could have spent all day down there — and I was finally getting the hang of not flailing around like a dork whenever I tried to just swim in place. I felt all adrenaline-ized. All manly for doing something that was risky! Shark infested waters! Reef diver! Me!

When we got back on the boat the frenchmen gave me a few cookies. We ate cookies and I talked about how awesome it was. He seemed whatevery sorta. Been there done that. He’s probably friggin swum up in a whale’s butt in the Andes Mountains or whatever. This was probably like not a big deal I’m sure.

But I was jazzed. I got back to the pool and waited for the wife to get back. I was excited to brag about how I risked my life to look at a turtle. How I was sure there were sharks nearby. How I controlled my panic attack.

I ordered a beer at the pool bar and toasted myself and my greatness. A true adventurer! Excited to tell my story. And excited to hear about her relaxing spa time.

But when the wife got back to the pool we were on two different pages. While my Scuba adventure went off without a hitch… the wife didn’t describe the spa treatment as ‘relaxing’ — she said it was more like ‘traumatizing…’

Apparently, the masseuse wasn’t like a “real” masseuse. More like the woman who worked at the hotel who kind of volunteered. She may have been one of the waitresses. Long story short. The wife felt way too naked. And like she got a full on bare butt massage. Then flipped over without the proper decent discreet sheet shield. Boobs out. No coverage. Then her boobs were slapped at with some oils and then she had her whole belly area massaged which seemed weird. There was no deep massage. Mainly an hour of oil slaps and finger drumming and stuff.

When the massage trauma was over, she got some sort of mask put over her eyes and experienced the manicure in the dark. It was unrelaxing throughout. She was laughing about it but she definitely seemed kind of stunned by it all. Btw the spa treatment was double the cost of my dive too.

We spent the rest of the day avoiding the rain and getting psyched up that we had only one more day of our honeymoon. And wondering what the ‘Tuesday Night Entertainment’ was going to be all about…

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