This summer I went swimming,
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.


This sprang unbidden into my head after I cleared the swim platform off Papagayo and started following the buoy rope going north. Ol' Loudon had a quirky sensayuma, that's for sure and his Swimming Song is embedded in my mental soundtrack of this year's trip.

If you've been following along with this episodic memoir, then by now you probably know how the day went in principle, at least. This morning I woke at six and went outside and shot a small breeze with Chloe before grabbing some more zeds. As far as the zed/zee debate goes, I will only point out that in Pulp Fiction, Butch does not say, "Zee's dead, baby". I rest my case.

Next thing I know, I snorted awake again to find The Goddess stirring and there were no croissants in sight. I hightailed it down to the boulangerie and exchanged some pleasantries with Pascal before getting back uphill as fast as a possible and preparing for the thunderbolts that might lay in store. Coffee and croissants were consumed and we girded our loins for yet another day on the beach. The honeymoon couple who were here when we arrived were leaving today, so we bade them farewell before descending to sea level.

After picking up more sunscreen -- we seem to be drinking the stuff -- we hit the beach. The beach, once again, refused to register the impact. The morning, as you may have suspected, continued along its normal pattern of bob, swim, read, snooze, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. When noon came round, we (reluctantly) pulled on some clothes and walked down to find our friends Luc & JC at Le String. Le String, however was closed as were the next 4-5 bars beyond that. We walked back to Ethnic, which was empty, and got talking with Frederick. He explained that Friday was always a quiet day and there seemed no real reason for it but that many places close on Friday for that reason. We shared a French burger which was ridiculously good and downed a couple of beers before returning to our spot next to Larry & Cleta and spent the rest of the afternoon bobbing and reading and... well, you know the rest by now. I swam the beach three times today. One set of folks on the beach, in an absolutely inspired move, had taken some floaters out and moored themselves to the buoy rope. That way they could bob and sun in the waves and not float off. A stroke of genius, if you ask me.

But, 5pm came round too soon as usual and, only 3 beach swims to my credit today, we made the trip back up to Club F and started prepping for dinner. All the ingredients were already prepped from the previous aborted attempt and all that was required was to grate the Parmesan, mix up the chicken stock and start stirring. We made a pile of risotto, shared some with C&T and I plan on some arancini with the leftovers.

The Goddess and I shared some hot tub and swim time and now, as the night wears on, I write this installment and shoot some more breeze with the latest guests to arrive here and reflect, once again, on how lucky we are to be able to do this and our added good fortune of having discovered this particular place and our new-found friends.