Jungle Cruise

Josh and I are water people…we always have been, and we always will be. And after living by the ocean for 3 years of law school, I honestly can’t fathom us living in a place without easy access to the water. Guam, being a rather petite island, certainly has easy access to the water! The only decision to be made on any given day is what kind of water activity is appealing. Up to this point, Josh and I have done our fair share of snorkeling. We’ve hiked to a variety of beaches, and we’ve been rewarded by seeing some pretty awesome forms of life. However, we have had a hankering to explore the island in a different way for quite some time. So, in honor of our summer birthdays, we bit the bullet and bought a kayak. Wow…a whole new section of the island is open to us! We can now explore rivers that aren’t meant to be snorkeled, coves that are too far to swim to or hike to and too expensive to access by rental boats, etc. We definitely deserve a pat on the back for this decision!

Our first outing in our kayak was a quick trip out to sea one day after work. We raced the sunset to see how far we could paddle before it became completely dark, and we saw some pretty neat things along the way. First, we saw about a million flying fish…literally, they flew right at us! We also saw a barracuda leap out of the water as it raced alongside us, and shortly thereafter, a frenzied tuna boil. (For those unenlightened folks, as was I, a tuna boil is a feeding frenzy of tuna on a school of little fish. The fish are going so crazy that it actually looks like the water is boiling!) So, we were pleasantly satisfied with the adventure our kayak could bring.

Our first big outing in our kayak came in the form of our very own jungle cruise. We drove to a nearby river, deposited the kayak in the water, and took off. The river was not what I would call clear, so we couldn’t see many water critters, though we did see hundreds of jumping fish. I guess we scared them as we paddled past…scared them so badly that they leaped into the air, occasionally skipping a few times on the surface of the river just like a rock! We also saw a giant swimming crab…I’ve never seen a crab racing a kayak before, I’ve only seen crabs playing in waves breaking on the beach! (I tried to give this guy a lift with my paddle so he could take a breather, but I guess he wasn’t tired…he was a quick little feller!) Aside from these few swimming critters, we saw several beached crabs and plenty of butterflies. The real beauty of the cruise, however, lay in the scenery on the sides of the river. We were surrounded by palm trees, river grass, and bamboo. Sometimes, the vegetation came together to create a lush canopy over our heads. At this point, factor in a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds, and you’ll see that we found absolute perfection. What a serene experience! Since Guam is practically devoid of all predators (aside from sneaky brown tree snakes that eat all the birds), we had no worries of running into feisty hippos, grumpy crocodiles, or hungry piranhas (like at Disneyland!). We simply sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the ride. Well, I did anyway…poor Josh did the bulk of the paddling! This was my kind of adventure!