I can’t possibly describe to you how much I have missed this. They said I would be seasick but I just laughed. I lived on a ship for four months, I’ve crossed three out of four of the world’s oceans, I chased a typhoon around the Cape of Good Hope; I don’t get seasick. Emotional, maybe. Being back on a ship has been on my mind 24/7 since I debarked, and I was so happy to be back, so overwhelmingly ecstatic to be sailing into a new port that I couldn’t even think to sit in my seat, but spent the entire hour-and-a-half ride leaning over the starboard railing, until I couldn’t even open my eyes they were stinging so badly from the fresh, salty, sea-spray.

We awoke once again at some ungodly hour this morning to catch a tuk tuk from the hotel to the bus station. I told you that the streets are steep, and this is how steep they are: for the first half of the ride there, our driver didn’t even start the engine but just put the little vehicle into neutral and let it roll down the streets. He dropped us at the bus stop, and we set off on the nine-hour ride basically from one coast of Honduras to the other.

Along the way we met a Canadian, Rastafarian, musician named Duane. As his destination was the same as ours, he helped us find our way around and negotiate taxies from the bus stop in La Ceiba to the ferry. Then the hour-and-a-half ferry ride to the island—which confirmed in my mind that I must never go this long again without seeing the ocean—and then another half hour taxi ride to our beach house. By this time it was well past sunset, and so it was impossible to see the majority of what was beyond the taxicab’s window. But at long last we pulled up to a bright yellow house on the beach where my Annie and Nick were already waiting, as they had flown in that morning from Chicago.

I’ve been here a matter of hours and I already love this place. The house is everything you could ever want from a beach house, and is just feet away from the ocean. I ran out to the beach to feel the saltwater on my toes and lively music came drifting from a hundred meters away or so in either direction. I can’t wait to see what fun lies in store for the next week here!