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“Take us straight forward. Slowly. Gently.”
Sawyer obeys with a short paddle on each side of the kayak, guiding us away from the shore.
“There!” I point, and he drags the blade through the water to slow us down.
“What are you looking at?”
The boat tilts, just slightly, as he shifts his weight and follows my gaze to the right.
“Are those—”
“Turtles!” I whisper-yell. “Sea turtles. Aren’t they amazing?”
I’m not sure how long we sit here like this, but it’s long enough that John, one of our guides, must be concerned.
“Everything alright?” he asks, pulling up alongside us. His voice interrupts the gentle lapping of water against our kayak and startles me.
“Oh! Yes, everything’s great. We found some turtles.”
“They’re smaller than I expected them to be,” Sawyer says, and leave it to him to be picky about the size of the sea turtles we’ve happened upon.
“But they’re not snakes, so that’s a plus.” I shoot a wink in his direction, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. He grins in return, squinting into the sun.
John looks confused, like of course turtles are not snakes. He eyes Sawyer and replies, “Most turtles here are juveniles, which is why they might be smaller than you’d imagine. Once they grow, they could be seven hundred pounds.” He rests his elbows on his knees and watches them like they’re his favorite film.
Similarly, I can’t peel my eyes from the cluster of turtles around the boat. They move so effortlessly through the water, floating and gliding with the help of their flippers. Despite them being just under the water’s surface, they’re nearly camouflaged; ripples on the water reflect the sun’s light in the same pattern as their shells.
“We need to rejoin the group now. Time to learn about pirates!” John says. He’s maybe forty, tan and lean from the kayaking and mountain bike excursions he leads on a near-daily basis on the island. He’s friendly, but not overly so. He’s got a lot of knowledge but very little patience, so we don’t argue when it’s time to follow him back to the rest of the group.
Denny, on the other hand, is a native of Bermuda but a nineties California surfer-boy type. He can’t be more than twenty-two, and I wonder how he came to absorb so many traits from four seasons of Saved by the Bell in his young life.
I could sense John’s interest in the sea turtles we encountered and the information he shared throughout our excursion so far. Denny has the same enthusiasm for the pirate stories he tells us about the island: apparently early settlers would intentionally cause trade ships to wreck in the reefs along the western side of the island, then take what they wanted from the stranded vessels.
I love a good story. Even more, I love a good story-teller, and Denny’s delivery is equal parts suspense and laughter, married together for an engaging experience.
“You might have some competition on the bestseller list,” Sawyer says as we turn ourselves around and begin the journey back to the beach, with John as our guide. “That Denny… he was pretty good.”
“I might. Not sure we write the same genres, though.”
“Yeah, but if we had a people-watching story contest—”
“I’m sure he’d win.”
“Glad we agree.”
I can practically feel Sawyer’s smile at my back and droplets of water from his paddle as he alternates left-right-left, balancing my right-left-right.
There’s commotion behind us, and I follow John’s gaze as he turns to see what’s happening toward the rear of our group. Some of the other excursioners are laughing, flailing their paddles in the water. Denny muscles toward, then past us at an impressive pace.
“First ‘yak back to shore gets free Rum Runners!” he shouts.
John rolls his eyes and stops his kayak, ready to bring up the rear now that Denny has taken the lead.
The only way I can describe what happens next is to say we are launched forward. Sawyer is taking this seriously, leaning so far forward with each stroke he’s practically in front of me. I paddle too, but the way the laughter takes over makes it hard to dig as deep as I should.
“You might have some competition, too,” I tell him. Denny’s got some distance on us, but Sawyer’s closing the gap, and no one else is even close. I chance a look back, and two lines crease his forehead between his brows.
“What do you mean?”
