When I read the reviews for our Airbnb, I noticed several people complaining about the noise. They complained about the roosters and the dogs. However, when you stay in an Airbnb like this, you’re signing up to live like the locals. In the middle of the night, we were woken up by the sound of horses whinnying, dogs barking, dogs’ owners yelling at their dogs, and various roosters getting confused about what time it was. Overall, I liked it. If you want peace and quiet, maybe a hotel would work better.

We woke up, made breakfast, and drove to a farmers market. Nothing had prices so we went light. After we got our bill, we went back for more. I think the way the farmers market works is somebody on the main island goes to Costco and buys a whole bunch of produce and then rides the ferry out to the island and sells it. I guess that’s kind of farming… the prices here are similar to Utah, maybe 20 to 30% higher. A lot of the grocery stores sell Kirkland products. I think they also go to Costco on San Juan and bring stuff back to sell here.

After bringing our food back to our Airbnb (it’s really weird to be so mobile),  we drove to the far western point of our island, at Playa Punta Arenas. We had a beach pretty much to ourselves. It wasn’t a huge one, but we didn’t have others around us for much of the time. A young family with a husband and wife and a child came and set up about 25 yards to the east of us, and stayed about an hour. 

The water where we were was very clear. I had grabbed a snorkel and some goggles from our Airbnb and so went out in the water to try them. It was cool to immediately see fish swimming near me. The beach dropped off really quickly about 5 feet out. It was mostly a sandy bottom, but there were lots of large seashells scattered around. Maybe 100 yards away from us, behind an embankment, there were a few larger boats that seemed to have come from the main island. Maybe it was a good sign that we were at the place where the boats were choosing to go to.

Even though the seafloor was relatively barren, I enjoyed swimming with the snorkel and the mask. I wish I would’ve thought of that ahead of time and bought a better one to bring with me. It was nice to move through the water with very little effort and not having to constantly pick my head up to breathe.

As we were leaving, a young couple we had met the night before recognized us and told us where they had just been. Very close to where we were was the area that the commercial snorkeling companies would bring their customers. It was a mostly dead reef. I went out into the ocean there and swam about 100 yards out. I saw a lot more fish, some with very bright colors. Most of them, however, blended in with the dead coral (black, white, striped, and brown). About 100 yards out I was able to see a stingray swimming about 20 feet below me. It was cool to see how effortlessly it seemed to move through the water.

We hit another beach on the way back, Joel’s Beach, nobody was there, and we figured out why. The water was murky and the sea floor was muddy. We did see a couple sea turtles poking their heads up out of the water to see what was up. I tried snorkeling there but could barely see my hands let alone sea life.

We drove back toward our airbnb and went to a beach called Sun Bay Beach. It was the most normal looking of all the beaches we’ve been to, with few surrounding trees and very little vegetation, and mostly sand, although there were tall palm trees here and there. Again, I tried snorkeling, but the water here was murky too, even though the sea floor was sandy. Natalie sat and read her book and I sat and stared at the water. There were a couple crabs near us trying to figure out if we were going to eat them or they were going to eat us.

We finished the day by driving toward the south west corner of the island to a beach called Playa Grande. It was rocky, windy, and had big and boisterous surf. Even though we didn’t go swimming, it was one of my favorite beaches because of the big waves.

We watched the sunset and drove home to make dinner.