...Something Clever: Boats, Caves, and Piña Coladas.

If you haven't read the first part of this story, it's better to start at the beginning. To do that Click Here and read about what happened on my ACTUAL birthday and why this trip didn't happen then.

Then let me say, Get Ready. This post is photo heavy and I wanted all of them to be extra large so you would get the full effect.

If you already read that previous post, let me remind you. Jade and I had jumped on an online deal to schedule a boat tour out to Las Islas Marietas with Vallarta Adventures. After our first failed attempt, we rescheduled from Saturday the 6th (my birthday), to the following Wednesday.

On Tuesday, however, when we realized our car wasn't going to be finished at the mechanic's shop, we called back again and rescheduled an entire week later, to the following Wednesday, to give Tony plenty of time to finish the car.

The tour company was very accommodating and helpful and we felt great about how easy they were to work with.

So when that Wednesday rolled around we, again, dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:00 am, leaving the house by 5:30 in order to make the 1.5 hour drive to Nuevo Vallarta and account for the time difference to arrive by 8:00 am to board our boat on time.

We were much better prepared this time. We got everything ready the night before and got plenty of sleep. No ear-cracking thunder to keep me awake for hours in the night, thank goodness!

We were very excited about our trip and arrived at the marina right on time.

GET THIS: ...They lost our reservation!

When the lovely, accommodating young lady was talking to Jade the previous week she offered the new date and Jade said we would take it. Apparently, she had not made the change and no notes had been entered onto our account.

They thought we had "no-showed" the previous week.

Yikes!

We quickly pulled out our cell phone and showed Divina proof that Jade had called again to reschedule. She was actually very nice and hopeful to help. Unfortunately, their boats for that day were entirely booked.

She told us there was no way we could still go on the Marietas tour that day. She did offer for us to jump onto another tour (although we would have had to pay the price difference which I thought was less accommodating than they could have been). But I had my heart set on the Marietas islands and we rescheduled AGAIN for the coming Saturday.

But I did pretend to need some time to think about it because they offered for us to do it from the dolphin observation deck.

It was our third time rescheduling and would be our third time actually leaving our house early and trying to make it to the boat. It would be exactly 2 weeks after my actual birthday.

So come Saturday the 20th, we had 5:00 alarm clocks again, an apple for the road. Sunscreen, hats and our snorkel gear were packed.

We just left the house about 5 minutes late. It wouldn't have been a problem had we not hit some pretty serious traffic that morning. It was worse than I had ever seen it. There were lots of big trucks and buses which were very slow. Opportunities to pass were few and far between.

I was getting very nervous when it was 7:50 local time and we knew we were still probably 20 minutes away. But I also knew that the "check-in" time is usually scheduled quite a bit earlier than the absolute "you'll miss the boat if you haven't checked in yet" time.

I also wasn't ready to get my hopes up until my butt was actually sitting on a boat.

Luckily we arrived quickly and check-in was smooth. Divina had rescheduled us correctly so they had room for us.

We ate a quick continental breakfast and boarded this beauty.

Jade had his GoPro camera which takes incredible photos as you can see blow. Unfortunately we had an issue with our memory card and these next two photos are the only two that made it from the entire day. Fortunately, though, I also had taken a waterproof handheld camera and had double documented everything. Lucky us.

We picked seats on the top deck in the back. I should know by now that I should always get a seat at the front. I LOVE boats. No, I mean I really, really LOVE boats. I love how the front of the boat bounces on the waves. And I never get sea sick.

At first we thought the boat was quite empty. Then the captain announced that we would be boating over to Puerto Vallarta to pick up the rest of the passengers. By then the boat was completely full, over 100 people on board and we set off for the islands.

The boat traveled fairly slow which I didn't mind at all. They told us it would be almost 2 hours before we arrived at the islands.

Jade and I enjoyed watching the (Jade is telling me they were brown boobies) birds dip in the air and slice through the water to catch fish. We saw two sea turtles in uh... romantic embrace. At that, the captain cried, "Love is in the air!" and he and the crew continued their show of salsa dancing and telling jokes to introduce themselves.

The weather was perfect and the time flew by. Soon we were anchoring right near one of the islands, which happen to be right off the coast of Punta de Mita.

So here's a quick wiki-history for you.

The Marieta Islands (Spanish: Islas Marietas) are a group of small uninhabited islands a few miles off the coast of Nayarit, Mexico. They are very popular tourist destinations because of the abundant marine life populations due to the islands being protected from fishing and hunting by the Mexican government.^[1]

The Marieta Islands were originally formed many thousands of years ago by volcanic activity, and are completely uninhabited. The islands are about an hour long boat ride west-northwest from the coast of Puerto Vallarta and are visited daily by hundreds of tourists, yet no one can legally set foot on the islands. In the early 1900s the Mexican government began conducting military testing on the islands because no one lived there. Many bombings and large explosions took place on the islands causing amazing caves and rock formations to be created. After a massive international outcry, started by scientist Jacques Cousteau in the late 1960s, the government eventually decided to label the islands a national park and therefore protected against any fishing, hunting or human activity.

So the government limits the number of companies that can take tours to the islands but there are a few. Most of the tour company websites boast about the aquatic life you might see including dolphins, sea turtles, manta rays, octopus, and almost 100 different species of birds that call the islands home, most notably the Blue-footed booby, the Brown booby, and the curious "laughing" sea gull. During the winter the area is very famous for whale watching.

We donned our snorkel gear and jumped in the water. Our tour didn't actually include very much snorkeling and we didn't go anywhere where there were many fish to see. I think mostly the snorkel gear was just used to help the 100+ people on the boat of varying swimming skill levels actually swim to the island.

Our first stop was the most famous island with the beach hidden in the center. The outside of the island is made up of rocky cliffs. There is one main tunnel into the center where you can relax on the sandy beach.

This is the view of the tunnel from the inside.

These photos don't show it but with our whole tour group in there the beach seemed very small. Definitely not as big as I had imagined.

To the left I found another cool cave to the outside of the islands. A few guys were exploring it ahead of Jade and me. We headed in behind them but the current was so strong they turned back about half way through. We took their word for it! But the view, seeing the waves splash up through the rocks and start filling up the cave was very cool.

At the mouth of the cave a few of us stopped to take pictures. I was standing next to the designated photographer from their group. That's when the current got REALLY strong. I was holding onto the rocks next to me for balance and I tried to dig my feet into the sand to keep myself anchored. It didn't work.

Next thing I knew my legs were parallel to the sand and my feet were being dragged into the cave. My death grip on the rocks was the only thing that kept me from being swept away and the photographer next to me was in the same position, his feet almost in my face. His four buddies rushed over and reached out to grab ahold of us without getting too close to get caught in the current as well.

We headed back out the main tunnel back to the boat. Honestly going through the tunnel was one of the best parts of the whole day. It was so cool!

Jade and I did free dive just a little around the rocks on the outside of the cave. There was some cool coral and some different species of fish, even some fairly big ones.

This (below) is the outside of the island.

When we got back to the boat we jumped in one of the kayaks. I wanted to paddle board but the ocean was too rough for it to have been fun. We kayaked around for 10 minutes and when we got back on the boat they were taking ponga rides around a few of the islands, down to a private beach.

I actually didn't know about this part of the tour. But man it was gorgeous there!! Seriously idyllic. One of the most beautiful places I have been in my life. We just walked back and forth a few times and took a million photos.