Playing Hooky

It's 8:30 in the morning, the sun already high in the sky. The sea is a bit choppy. I'm sitting in the rear seat of the yellow kayak with three-year-old Avery tucked in front of me. Her mom is guiding our kayak, following her husband with their two boys in the kayak in front of us.

The dad has a couple hours off before he has to be in the kitchen again, where he is chef for this group of students and staff at YWAM Destination Paradise. I asked to tag along.

I'm kind of playing hooky, if I go by one of the definitions of this word I just looked up:

"Unauthorized absence from work or school”.

I didn't ask anyone, I just checked my schedule last night. I was supposed to launder all the kitchen cloths and towels this morning. Whoops! Forgot to sign up again! Never mind: the load of towels was in the washer at 6:00 am before the official schedule even began.

A minor glitch; the power was off for a short while, a common occurrence apparently. Sometimes the power outage originates on the mainland, I was told.

Oh! On again. The load finished just as Terry and I finish our breakfast porridge. Stuff the towels into the dryer.

The two kayaks are headed for a white buoy on this side of the traffic lane where the water taxis speed by. It is supposed to be shallow there. Dad's goal is to find another conch to cook and eat. Minimum length seven inches, or else it's illegal to harvest. He had found one the other day; I'm not sure how it's going to be cooked.

Here we are at our spot. We lower the cement block anchors, which lie on the ocean floor maybe ten feet down. Adjusting my snorkel, I slip off the kayak into the water. Patches of sea grass covered the bottom. Mostly it grows sparsely in individual blades.  Super salty water stings my eyes and fills my mouth. The water gets into the mask, so the mom tightens it for me. That's better. I swim around, practising my breathing. I scan the sand. Not a thing to see, except a conch, greenish brown and hairy. “It's dead,” says the dad, lifting it up for me to see. Not at all pretty like the one I got off the island of Antigua.

Mom and Avery sunbathe on the kayak. Eventually they come into the water, Avery in her life vest clinging to mom's neck and riding on her back.

Dad's search for another meal proves fruitless, so we head back.

Mom warns me, “Last time it took me a long time to get to shore; I kept going around in circles.” Dad gives the rear paddler [that's me!] some basic instructions, and soon we are headed in a fairly straight line towards the beach.

Back in the laundry room the load of towels is bone dry, and I calmly fold them and put them back into the kitchen.

There! Half my day's work is done in short order, with a very pleasant interlude, the totally unexpected gift of 'playing hooky.' I like the other definition much better: 'Absence from work or school'. No worries—it was fun.