For the morning of Day 7, I had reserved a spot on the Sea Trek tour at Coral World Ocean Park. Sea Trek is marketed to people who would like to try SCUBA diving, but don’t want to go to the time and expense involved in getting a SCUBA certification. Basically, they put a modernized version of an old-school diving helmet on you (complete with a guy on the pier operating a pump to feed you air through a long hose), then a guide escorts you along a maintained route to see FISHIES and various other sea life. See their web site if you need a visual aid. Since I had panicked when trying to snorkel on Day 2, I took a double dose of Lorazepam an hour before the Sea Trek excursion. And it worked. I wasn’t nervous at all, and was thus able to enjoy the experience. One thing to note related to Parkinson’s Disease (PD): there’s a gap at the bottom front of the helmet. They tell you ahead of time that water will start coming in through this gap if you don’t keep your head upright, but all you have to do to correct this is return to upright. Of course, one of the many effects of PD is involuntary slouching. They oughta use these helmets to train people with PD to walk properly, because I started taking on water three or four times, and was well motivated to correct my posture each time.
After the Sea Trek experience I checked out the rest of Coral World Ocean Park. This park is what I imagine Sea World was like in its early days, before the Sea World parks became roller coaster destinations. It’s small, but has several interesting attractions. I got to watch sea turtles being fed, then watched sharks being fed, watched dolphins do some tricks, then I went into the Caribbean Reef Encounter – basically, an 80,000-gallon aquarium. Unfortunately, the glass was unclean and heavily scratched along the bottom, making it difficult to get pics of the fish. But I tried, anyway. Here are some decent pics I managed to get…
Finally, I walked their Tropical Nature Trail. This part of the park is populated with a variety of iguanas, some of which may be seen NOW:
Closing time (4:00) was approaching, so I briefly visited the macaw, lorikeet, and stingray exhibits, before leaving the park. Said park (not Ced Park – I’m still working on the design for that place) borders on Coki Beach. I assume Coki Beach got its name because certain people saw its fine white sand and tried snorting it. It’s a very small beach, but the cocaine sand draws quite a crowd. There are also some decent views from this beach. Check out a couple of ’em:
I spent the rest of the daylight briefly scouting a couple more beaches – Lindquist and Sapphire. Both are big, beautiful, and swimmable. And with that, I hereby abruptly end Day 7. Days 8 and 9 will be documented soonish.
Voyages with Parkinson's 