crows to burnaby

On Monday a small boat whisked us off the beach of Montezuma for a snorkelling trip. The instant we were on the water, the breeze lifted the oppressive heat and humidity away, and I felt glorious.

Our guide was Shalina, a Torontonian who'd arrived in Costa Rica a few years ago and never left. This seems to be a major trend in Montezuma, and after today I could understand why a little better than I could after our trek in the heat. The coastline was spectacular from the water - green and bustling and rich, with stretches of lazy beaches filling the spaces between jagged volcanic rock.

I decided not to bring the camera today - I didn't want to risk it getting waterlogged. I thought about getting a disposable underwater camera, and would've if we hadn't heard that the visibility in the water was a bit poor due to the new moon and last night's storm. I also thought I should just sit back and relax properly, and not worry about documenting everything.

Along the way Shalina stopped to rescue a sea turtle, which had gotten a leg trapped in some kind of mesh bag and was swimming frantically in circles with dozens of tiny fish surrounding it. One of the other guides held it while she figured out how to detach the bag, and those of us close to it gingerly touched it, avoiding the nasty hook on its beak. She released it as soon as it was free.

Our destination was a small place called Tortuga Island. This isn't the Tortuga you've heard of - tortuga means turtle and there's probably dozens of places named Tortuga. It was such a perfect island beach it was almost a cliche - a row of massive tall coconut and palm trees to greet us along the stretch of white sand beach, the teal water as warm as room temperature with gently rolling waves to bob around in.

Before visiting the beach, however, we were taken to a chunk of rock a short distance from the island, which turned out to be a good spot for snorkelling - some kind of fish no matter where you look. We saw yellow and black tigerfish, blue damselfish, stunning iridescent dark blue fish, and a few tall flat silver-blue fish the size of dinner plates. The visibility wasn't perfect, and the current was strong enough that you had to be careful you didn't lose track of your position and bonk your knees against the rocks. Diving down a few feet cleared up the visibility wonderfully, though.

I have no idea what condition the coral itself was in - it certainly wasn't nearly as bright and colourful as what we saw in the Bahamas years ago. Was it healthy? Maybe. The fish did seem to be abundant. I don't know for sure, and it worried me that I could smell the gasoline from the snorkelling boats. This is the quandary of ecotourism - you draw attention to the natural wonders of the area and invite people to appreciate them and learn to respect them, but by doing this you also risk killing off the very same wonders. Costa Rica has done a good job of maintaining this balance - only 150 people per day are allowed in Santa Elena reserve, for example. Perhaps the snorkelling in the area was restricted to this one space - better to damage one small patch of coral than the whole area. I don't know the regulations.

After ample snorkelling time, we hopped back up on the boat and over to the island, where the tour prepared a barbecued fish meal. FYI, everything tastes better outside on a tropical island.

The island is home to a few domesticated turkeys, grackles with an incredible variety of songs, and a tame peccary in the gift shop. The peccary was comfortably snuggled into the sand floor of the shop, and snorted up a light cloud of sand with every exhale. She tolerated being patted.

Other domesticated inhabitants include a scarlet macaw and a small green parrot that became obsessed with Greg's sunglasses-holder and had to be gently but firmly removed from his neck.

I decided that I hadn't had any serious downtime on the vacation yet, and deserved some. Along with a few others, I chose to stay on the island during the afternoon snorkel, where I found a beach chair safely in the shade and took a nap. I woke up abruptly in one of those "where am I?!" moments and was pleased to discover I was on a beautiful tropical island. I lazed about and collected a few seashells until the boat picked up us castaways. Greg did go back for the afternoon snorkel and saw a spotted eagle ray, which made his day.

On the boat ride back, Shalina spotted no less than a manta ray, a massive shadow moving near the boats. It flipped upside down for a second and we saw its white underbelly before it dove down and disappeared.

The heat in Montezuma felt far less oppressive when we returned, and we had a wonderful evening at a restaurant near the beach, watching the waves and the birds and the people and the dogs. (There's a stunning number of stray dogs in Montezuma, and while they mostly seem very friendly, they don't look to be in the best of health; we avoided most of them.)

Next: two natural swimming pools, and the return to San Jose.