This morning Sharon was up first and sat for awhile on our balcony watching the sun come up. I woke a little later at 7:40 and joined her. The sky was partly overcast and even trying to rain a bit, but that seemed to have no effect on the local birds (you can watch pelicans fishing for a long time) or the early staff who remove the night’s flotsam of seaweed from the white sandy beaches.

We dressed and went downstairs to the lobby bar for cappuccinos, and then in to the buffet breakfast. A while later we were joined by Scott and Lynn. We chatted about what we might do that day, and possibilities for the rest of the week. Leading options now are more snorkelling and possibly paddle-boarding, Xcaret, and a visit in to Playa del Carmen.

Ross and Mimi were down to join us just after 10am, which was unfortunately just a little past the breakfast schedule, so they continued on down the beach to the 24-hour snack bar where breakfast options continued to be available. We reconvened in the lobby bar and relaxed, watched the ocean, and finally decided that we would take a trip out to Yal-ku this afternoon to do some more snorkelling and see some tropical fishes.

We went back up to our rooms and packed up our snorkel gear, arranged swimsuits and towels, and then popped back into the buffet for a quick lunch before heading on a walk to Yal-ku. The walk itself takes about 45 minutes to the north, the first 15 of which are along the beach to the south side of Alkumal. You continue along the local road from there and experience every manner of adobe and clay tile or thatched roof through to modern buildings. Cafes and “restaurants” are similarly dotted along the way, represented by everything from a couple of benches and a table up to beachside bars.

When we got to Yal-ku we had a bit of a situation – with no website to refer to (!) we relied on travel review websites to give us an indication of admission pricing, only to find on-site that the price had almost tripled since the latest info we could find. We’d only brought enough to cover a slight increase plus refreshments, so Auntie Lynn had to “negotiate” on our behalf (there was no weeping) and we were finally admitted for all the cash we had brought with us (no drinks for us!).

Not my photo, but the right idea!

So you should think of National Geographic specials to get a idea of what we were able to see in this tropical lagoon. Or try a Google image search on “Yal-ku lagoon” – what you get is fairly accurate to our experience! (though we saw no turtles) The lagoon is fairly easy to access, and after we had put on our snorkel gear we were off floating and paddling over the gorges and canyons (likely none more than 10 meters deep). At one point Sharon remarked that we were the decorative scuba divers of a very large fish tank – so many colourful fish swimming solo or in schools, completely oblivious or uncaring to our presence. At one point I found myself surrounded by little yellow stripy fish that were making no apparent effort to avoid me. I stopped and watched them and waited for them to pass me, but they simply continued to swim around in my area. I realized none were bumping me and it was became obvious that I could swim through them with no impact.

We swam for about an hour taking in all kinds of fish species and navigating the highly-varied underwater environment. Ross and Mimi got out the underwater cameras Laura sent with us and took many shots – we’re looking forward to having the “film developed” when we get home. When we were done, we towelled off, applied more sunscreen, and walked back to our resort.

We were in plenty of time to choose which restaurant we wanted for dinner, so we decided on the steak house “Il Rodregio” and then went to our rooms to clean up for dinner. We met at again at 6pm and were treated to a churrasco style dinner complete with the Brazilian swords and a wide variety of meats, including chicken, pork wrapped in bacon, sausage, beef, turkey, and calamari, with roasted vegetables and pineapple. Really great. Topped off with a creme brule.

When we were done we wandered along the beach and back to our rooms, and eventually reconvened to play a BIG game of Munchkin. We’re now up to four expansion decks so there was a lot of variety in the cards we were playing, and much hilarity as potato-suited gnomes with shoulder dragons took on halfling wizards with spider steeds. We played for a few hours before finally deciding that everyone who had made it to Level 9 tied for the win, and calling it a night.

Unfortunately the evening didn’t end so well for Ross, who was having some significant tummy trouble by the time we were ready for bed. Hopefully he’ll be feeling better in the morning!