schoonie love

So you know by now that at night in Paraty you're supposed to get drunk and fall down and hang out with pirates. But I bet you're wondering what you're supposed to do during the day. Well, i'll tell you. You're supposed to go on a schooner tour.

our rival schooner

Right near the historical cobblestone area of town, there's a HUGE, maybe quarter-mile long pier with hundreds of yachts and schooners lined up, waiting to take you on a schooner tour. Some of them are pirate themed. There are small private ones and big crowdy ones. They leave around 10am and return at maybe 6pm. In between those times your job is to find a spot anywhere aboard, plunk down, order drinks and food, listen to the live music playing in the cabin, and ... well if you're Tickby, get a massive sunburn. (If you're a normal person you wear sunblock to this kind of excursion, Especially if you're as true a snowflake as Tickby.)

The schooners take you out to pristine beaches on tiny islands and sometimes just stop at places where the water is particularly blue and beautiful, or if there are cool fish or dolphins. Once they drop the anchor (heheheheh) people just start diving off the sides and swimming around. It's pretty wonderful. Tickby and mark swam, I didn't. Little motion sick. All the fresh air and gentle rocking did me a world of good though.

can you find tickby and mark?

One of my fave parts of this schoonie love was the lack of organization. I kept thinking that if we'd been in the states people would have had assigned seating and everyone would demand  the same comfort and service as their fellow schoon-tangs. This was a clusterfuckedy free-for-all in the best way. For example, on the front deck where we spent most of the day, people were sitting and lying everywhere - on the boat's equipment, under stuff, where ever they could dig out a space.

I went to the front tippy of the boat (is that the stern? what is that?) and climbed up onto the shelfy-storage thing where they were storing all the floaties and noodles. It couldn't have been cozier. Mark and Tickby joined me and we had a little boat-tippy party, really probably the best seats in the house. Cushiony with noodles, private, and with the best view.

Within minutes I saw a schooner-staffer heading towards us and was pretty certain she was about to ask us to get down from there because the tippy wasn't for seating.

In fact she was coming to take our drink order. (She must have thought we were a pretty big deal, sitting in the tippy, and wanted to get our drinks out first.)