Snorkeling is something that’s never piqued my interest. If given the opportunity, you’re likely to hear me say ‘meh.’ I could live without it, as there are plenty of other things that I would be happier to do. This was why when on my latest vacation to Cancun, Mexico, when my two friends wanted to go and one friend didn’t, I nobly offered to stay behind with the lone friend.

However, when snorkeling day came around, one of the two felt sick. (Too much tequila.) That meant there was a paid-for ticket for snorkeling with an open spot. My other friend still wanted to go, and the lone friend still didn’t want to – I didn’t blame her though, she can’t swim. So, again, I nobly offered to take the spot of my sick friend and go snorkeling. Meh.

Our trip began at our hotel where my friend and I met up with my dad, who had set up the snorkeling adventure. He then led us to a guy whom had also helped him set up the trip. The guy – unnamed, to my knowledge – took us to the bus we were to get on. So far so smooth. Then the bus pulls up and the guy speaks Spanish to the driver to assure we get off where we need to. Bless him, because my four years of Spanish (and maybe not all consecutive years) was not enough to keep up with real Spanish – the language that’s faster than speed of light.

My friend and I were able to get off at the correct bus stop, but we still had no clue where we were going other than to look for Hooters, which we were told was located next door tour destination. It took us asking for directions two times to get us to our destination – Jungle Tours. The name never crossed my mind for a snorkeling excursion, because again, meh.

After we checked in with registration, we were given our snorkel mouth piece, life vest, and fins to try on and test out. My mouth piece tasted like rubber, which after swallowing salt water, I’d take the rubber any day.

Pre-snorkel photoshoot

I am so not impressed

About 20 of us gathered to begin our adventure, but before we began we had to learn some lessons. How to drive a speedboat. I hate my parents' jet skis, how was I going to drive a speedboat? Luckily, I didn’t have to, because I volunteered my friend to drive. Unfortunately, she’s a speed demon terminator driver. And even more unfortunately, she was scared to drive. These speedboats were small - enough room for only the two of us and our belongings, and we’d be out on the open Caribbean. I was wishing upon stars for an instructor to just drive us because had my friend forced me to the wheel, we would have never made it to the coral reef, let alone out of the dock.

My friend driving. And she said she was scared. Ha!

Two to a speedboat, and three boats to an instructor, we took off for snorkeling. And some speed demon driving. I held on to that boat for dear life and beyond, because oh no way was I tipping into that dark water where sharks could eat me or the boat behind us could run me over. This snorkel trip was no longer meh; it was get me off this thing!! Especially as we did the turns. I yelled at my friend to turn off the boat because we were going to die. I was sure of it. We were going to tip and die.

We didn’t tip, but we sure did jump following the other speed boats. The open Caribbean was so choppy that we could have been flung out of the boat. Where was this speed boat part in the brochure for snorkeling, because this sure wasn’t snorkeling! And why did I let my friend drive? And who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to give foreign tourists permission to drive a boat without a license in the middle of the frickin’ ocean?!

Arriving at the snorkeling site

When we finally made it to the beautiful coral reef – water so blue and sand so white surely we had ended up in photoshop land – I was so excited. Finally, we could go a slow, happy speed, and get to the real reason I was on the trip - to snorkel.

But we had a few issues first. My mask was one of them. I tried breathing just through my nose, as I’m normally a mouth breather, and my mask tried to go up my nose. Great, how was I going to breathe? Why had I come, I kept wondering, and that thought only got worse as everyone started plopping into the water. My other issue was that I didn’t think I could get into the water. It was like I was having a panic attack; I was terrified. I was prepared to sit in that boat for the next 45 minutes and skip the snorkeling. Pout party for one, right here.

Finally, I decided to carpe diem (seize the day) and go forth with snorkeling. However, as I jumped into the water, 3 more uncool things happened. First, one of the instructors joked that there was a barracuda swimming towards me, second, the joke scared me and I almost hit my head on a boat, and third a small fish touched me. I did the icky dance in the water.

Somehow I found the courage to keep going and not crawl back onto that boat. But I kept doing that icky dance or moving my legs to make sure no other fish touched me, no thank you!

Actually snorkeling was better than I imagined. Minus all the other people that occasionally kicked me, and vice versa, but c'est la vie. I was swimming in incredibly deep but beautiful water, and swimming over a coral reef in Mexico. I was living the dream.

Sadly, I have no pictures to show of our 45 minute snorkel, but there wasn’t much time to snap pictures as we swam and looked. I wouldn’t have wanted to waste a second fussing with a camera, or potentially losing it to be fish food.

One of the coolest things in the reef was the underwater museum – art structures incorporated into the reef. Such as an angel - one of the instructors' girlfriend, he joked - a giant bomb, and a guy’s head.

My friend even got to hold a starfish, something I wish I had done, but I was still in my ‘I think I might not survive this trip’ phase so I opted to not hold it. It was so limp compared to the hard stars we could purchase in the local market.

Towards the end, I began to get a little seasick. Being in that deep water with the waves hitting you, I was content with the snorkeling coming to an end. However, that also meant we had to drive back. More choppy waves and turns, but alas the security of land! But first we had to get back into the boat. Easier said than done. Ungracefully, an instructor helped pull me up, but my bottoms fell down a bit and I mooned probably half the group. A speedboat, the coral reef, and the moon; you can see it all with Jungle Tours!

Driving on open water

The ride back was less choppy but still as terrifying. Because this time when I told my friend to slow down on the turns, she sped up. "I just want to keep up with the group," she insisted. Yeah, yeah, I thought as I leaned into her, trying to even out the angle of the boat as we turned. I wished I had ridden in the boat with the girls behind us. On the last turn, they said screw it, turned off their boat, and slowly made their way cutting across the circle to get back in line behind us.

My friend and I in our speedboat at the end of the trip. We survived!

Back at the dock, I told my friend that we needed ‘I survived’ shirts because it had certainly been a trip, between us being freaked about flipping out of the boat and me holding on for dear life.

And worse, we still had more surviving to do! Figuring out the buses was hard, but getting off them was worse. We stood up at the stop we needed and where we’d daily seen the bus stop but the driver kept going. Next stop we said we needed off and the driver told us, ‘no, you wait for me.’ Were we ever going to get off the bus? We didn’t have much time to fret, as we were able to get off at the next stop, but only because people were getting on. Had they not gotten on, I wonder how far we would have had to walk back to our hotel.

By the time we arrived back it was 3:30, four and a half hours later, but perfect timing. Happy hour. Who wants some tequila?!

Brianna Krueger is the Chief Editor for Wandering Educators

All photos courtesy and copyright Brianna Krueger