I'm at a foreign seaside resort, with some members of my family. First we're in a beautiful place overlooking the ocean waves from a few hundred feet on a bluff, but I say that I keep looking over there expecting to see the view that we had yesterday, which was apparently better.

Steve and I go out swimming for the morning, along the coastline and around the corner to the left, but he's out in the surf, perhaps snorkeling, and I lose sight of him. The tide is coming in quickly, the sea is getting rough, and I think we had better head back to our home base, or we might get stranded or pounded on the surf. But I can't find Steve.

There are some other people around there who are wearing wet suits, so I tell them about it and they start looking for him, and spreading the word. Nobody has seen him. He's really gone.

I work my way back along the coastline to our room, where I find Steve. I'm a little annoyed that he didn't stick with me, and that we were all worried looking for him. I tell him that he had better go tell the full-scale search posse that he isn't missing any more.

He says he had got involved in some sort of snorkeling class, which pretends to be a free class, but is actually a cover for selling you something by giving you equipment that is defective, and he couldn't get away from it.

Later we find ourselves having lunch at a picnic table with Mom and some of my sisters, who are talking about going to see a movie, and which movie to go see. I tell them I won't be seeing any movies in this country, that would just be a waste of time. Steve and I want to go snorkeling.

To this end, we start heading down this long trail toward the beach, but I'm not ready to snorkel. I didn't bring my mask and snorkel; I ask Steve if I can rent them down by the beach. I'm worrying about everything, and the walking is slow and frustrating because my feet are tied together with about a foot and a half of string. Finally I stop and take off the string; apparently it's some sort of snorkeling apparatus that I would need later, and I put on to get ahead, not realizing that we had so long to walk.

The trail overlooks the beach, and we can see some snorkelers paddling out in the water, but they're all clustered near the beach, and I ask Steve if anybody has said what the snorkeling is even like. He says there are some better places to go.

I don't remember any actual snorkeling. We end up on a boat, going out into the sounds around the beach. It's a sunny day, and there are lots of boats out on the water. Apparently they don't have to wear tops around here, so a lot of the women on the other boats are going topless.