A Special Sunset Dinner in Cozumel

One of the true joys of traveling comes from the memories we make during our travels. They can be memories of a special place, a special event or even the special person with whom we share the experience. Many times those special travel memories involve or even revolve around food. Throughout our lives, we share many special, memorable dinners, but meals on vacation can often take on an almost magical quality. They may be memorable for the setting, for the company or for something that happens during the meal. It may be because of the day they happen or for a special event that they celebrate. But unless it is an exotic meal in a foreign land, it is rarely just for the food. As an example, one of my most memorable dinners occurred in Cozumel during a scuba diving trip with my wife.

This particular dinner is special to me for a variety of reasons. First, it occurred during one of the best vacations of my life. It was our first trip to Cozumel and it was also our first scuba diving trip to the ocean. Of course, Cozumel is world famous for its spectacular scuba diving. We had finished another wonderful day of diving, so we were relaxed. We were a little tired, but not overly so. The evening was warm, but not hot. We had decided to visit Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, just down the street from our hotel. It's a little touristy and probably gets most of its business from the cruise ships that dock in port. But my wife and I are both fans of Jimmy. Not quite parrotheads, but close enough that we visited a few times during the two weeks we were in Cozumel. It has a deck overlooking the ocean and a tropical vibe, so it is a pleasant place to wind down at the end of the day.

We were sitting outside on the deck which overlooks the most incredibly blue water imaginable. I was enjoying one of their tropical drinks, something cold and blue that I sipped as we watched the people, the ocean, the boats passing by and the setting sun. It was the perfect setting for what happened next.

To keep the sun out of her eyes, my wife was sitting with the sunset a little off behind her. I was facing her with the sunset a little more directly in view. And as I watched the sun slowly setting over the ocean (the island of Cozumel is far enough out from the mainland of Mexico that for the most part the mainland is below the horizon), I thought back to an article from an astronomy magazine that I had read as a kid.

The article talked about the light from the sun and how the colors we see are due to the atmosphere bending and reflecting different wavelengths. On a bright sunny day, the sky appears blue as that is the color of the wavelength that reaches our eyes. As the sun sets, the angle of the light changes, and that is why we see the oranges and reds and purples of the glorious sunsets we enjoy. However, as the article continued, there is one color of the spectrum that is rarely seen since the conditions that produce it have to be just right. If you are on the west coast overlooking the ocean, if the sky is clear without any clouds or dust and if the sea is calm with no waves, it is sometimes possible to see a final, quick flash of green as the rim of the sun sinks below the horizon. From the article, it seemed that people (well, astronomers, anyway) passed many years trying to find the perfect conditions to see this fabled flash of green, often with no success.

So the conditions were all there. A calm and clear evening with a flat sea. And I remember thinking to myself as the sun was setting, "Wouldn't it be something to actually SEE a green flash?" And as I got ready to explain the phenomenon to my wife, that's exactly what I saw! I tried to get her to look, but by the time she had turned her head it had already passed.

If you were to ask me what I had to eat, I wouldn't be able to say. Probably some type of fish. So the food itself wasn't all that memorable. But the combination of a great vacation, spectacular scuba diving, Jimmy Buffett songs playing in the background, the company of my best friend, a glorious sunset and the fabled, elusive "Green Flash" to top it off made that one of my most memorable travel meals ever.