Our boat’s engine had died. Our tour guide had turned green and was coughing violently into his handkerchief. We sat in the middle of the bay under the hot midday sun. A bottle-nosed dolphin surfaced nearby, as if to laugh at us. This had all started as a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. A three-hour tour.

I had gotten up at 6 AM to visit Las Islas Marietas, a group of small uninhabited islands in the neighbor state of Nayarit. Used as target practice for Mexican bombers during World War II, until Jacques Cousteau intervened on behalf of the blue-footed booby bird, the islands are now a popular destination for snorkelers, scuba divers and sight seers. The main attraction is a hidden beach inside a cave. A hidden beach. In a fucking cave. Who’s not down for that?

The tour almost didn’t happen at all. Because the beach is only accessible at low tide, the tour was scheduled to leave at 7 AM. The night before, I had asked the concierge to book a taxi for 6:30 AM. I had given him a nice tip and that special look of “dude, please make it happen!” Predictably, when I arrived in in the pitch dark lobby at 6:30, there was no cab and only a security guard sleeping by the front gate. After rousing him and the night manager, a shuttle van was eventually summoned but with little time to spare. I had a sinking feeling as the time ticked away.

Luckily, everything in Mexico runs approximately an hour behind, so the boat was not even close to leaving when I arrived at the pier around 7:05. I had paid a premium to travel with a small group of 10 people and gain access to the hidden beach, which is now limited to 116 visitors a day due to the environmental impact of foot traffic and sunscreen (as opposed to the impact of, you know, dropping bombs).

Half of our group was a family of five, headed by Seattle Mitt Romney. I call him Seattle Mitt Romney, because he was from Seattle and looked just like Mitt Romney. Seattle Mitt Romney was with his wife and three daughters. He seemed tense, in the way that someone traveling with a wife and three daughters is wont to be. I think he was also feeling protective of his daughters, because the eldest looked about 19 and was smoking hot.

The water was rough and I was sitting up front in our high-speed raft. I enjoyed the feeling of launching off the waves, but not the spine-crushing jolt of landing back on the water. By the time we got to the first island, our tour guide did not look well. He apologized for his illness and we pulled alongside another boat, so he could switch out with another guide.

The hidden beach was mind-blowing. We donned orange helmets (to protect us from rocks) and swam through through a narrow tunnel to reach the beach. Inside, the beach had a secluded Eden-like quality. It is actually a crater in the ground with an open roof, as opposed to a cave, so the sun poured down from above while the areas near the walls were in shadow. Dramatic lighting everywhere. Blue crabs skittered in and out of holes in the rock walls. Waves flowed through the tunnel and lapped against the shore.

The best part was an even smaller tunnel where water flowed out of the cave. Looking into the tunnel was like looking back in time. Water swirled inside a misty cavern with sunlight breaking through the craggy ceiling at odd angles. It looked like a primordial stew that could have existed when the Earth was still new, land was still forming, and life had not yet emerged. The elemental juxtaposition of rock, light and water pressed some deep subconscious buttons, like a dream come to life.

After some snorkeling in the brisk ocean, we headed for home. Halfway there our engine sputtered and died and our guide, who had rejoined us post-snorkel, again turned pale and hunched in the front of the boat. Miraculously, after a tense 15 minutes, the captain’s mate managed to repair the engine and get us started again. Seattle Mitt Romney smiled.