We leave for Mexico in a few days to look at a boat that sounds the most promising so far, a 38-foot Island Packet that’s fully tricked out for offshore sailing and seems to be in great condition.

Though we’re beyond excited about finally seeing the boat, I’m a little apprehensive about the trip. It’s not just the possibility that the boat may not pan out—though after surveying three sailboats and being boatless for almost four months during the most glorious Seattle summer in recent memory (not that we’re bitter), that would indeed suck.

The problem is that tropical vacations and I don’t mix. Beach getaways are not my friend. The sun-soaked escape I fantasize about during the gloom of a Northwest winter is very likely to turn into a disaster that lands me in some third world medical clinic.

The most recent beach vacation was last March, when we went to Honduras for some sun and scuba diving. Halfway through our two-week trip, I awoke one morning to find my arms, legs and chest hideously covered in a bright red, measles-like rash. Cholera? Dengue fever? What kind of nasty tropical disease had I contracted?

We immediately went to a medical clinic at a dive resort about 20 minutes away. A pretty, sweet young doctor around Doogie Howser’s age took me into an examining room, asked a few questions and determined I was having some type of allergic reaction.

It might have been a reaction to the antibiotics I was taking intensified by the heat and sun, an allergy to my DEET-containing bug spray (with at least five different strains of malaria reportedly identified on Roatan, why risk it?), or some combination of the two, Doogie said.

After injecting me with antihistamine and cortisone from two syringes that felt like knitting needles puncturing my ass, she told me not to use any products on my skin, including soap and sunscreen, stay out of the sun and avoid eating spicy foods. And those frothy rum and banana drinks we’d been enjoying every night? Forget it. Alcohol was off-limits.

Typhus? Dengue? Scarlet fever? WTF?!?

Since her instructions prohibited virtually all activities except hiding in my hotel room all day eating pablum, and since my alarming-looking condition was prompting stares from fellow vacationers, we headed home a few days early.

Truth be told, we were getting bored anyway. I’ve discovered that as much as I’d like to think I’d like to lounge around the beach with a novel for days on end, sitting around that long makes both of us squirrelly. The scuba diving and snorkeling off Roatan was exquisite and incredibly inexpensive, but we’d had enough.

In retrospect, I should have known better. After all, the Honduras trip was only two years after what’s become known as the Mexican Misadventure.

We’d gone to Isla Mujeres, a quiet island a short ferry ride from the frat boy hell of Cancun, for our first wedding anniversary in 2006. We got there on a sunny, hot Saturday afternoon and headed for the beach, an expanse of powdery sand and impossibly clear, warm water. After a few hours of talking with fellow travelers and having drinks at a thatched roof bar on the beach, we headed back to our hotel so I could get a sweater before going to dinner.

Running up the stairs to our room, I caught my flip flop on a step and pitched forward, catching my face on a tile corner as I went down. Touching my split upper lip, I immediately wished I wouldn’t have to deal with what was coming. The tile had sliced a deep incision at least an inch long that started under my nose and extended past my lip line. I knew it was going to be bad.

A taxi took us to the island’s medical clinic, located in a dingy, single-story cinderblock building. On the wall facing the door was a large black and white poster with a stark photo of a woman’s badly battered face and the words “Nunca Mas!” (No More). We were led down a hallway, past a rusted baby scale and a few pieces of worn equipment, into an office where a doctor was sitting behind a desk, playing with his cell phone. A flattened cardboard box was taped over the window to provide shade.

He motioned for us to follow him, walking into an examination room with two beds, one covered by a drawn curtain. He pulled back the curtain, revealing a Nurse Cratchit type who’d been napping and was clearly annoyed at being disturbed by the mishaps of some vacationing, spoiled gringa. She glowered as the doctor examined my lip. I started getting unnerved, thinking about the rusty scale and wondering about the risks of unsanitary medical equipment.

But the gauze and other items the doctor pulled from a cabinet were in packaging and obviously sterile. He spoke no English, other than advising me, “Might be … little pain” before he injected anesthetic into my split lip, which by then had puffed out, the skin on either side of the cut swelling away from it.

My stomach lurched. I suddenly grasped the meaning of “cold sweat.” Perspiration poured down my face and back. I was sure I’d pass out. Marty later told me I was green.

I got four stitches (cost of surgery and antibiotics: $26; experiencing a Mexican health clinic: priceless) and spent the rest of the week with a piece of gauze covered by a large band-aid on my face. People stared, to the degree that was tempted to get in their faces, point to my injury and ask, “You want some of this? DO YOU?”

Worse, some Mexicans clearly thought my husband had slapped me around. One asked me outright, “?Hizo su marido eso?” (Did your husband do that?) “No!” I told him, horrified. “Mi marido es un chavo bueno”—a good guy.

There have been a few other tropical as well, including an ill-fated trip to the Bolivian jungle that involved being stuck in a Jeep in a river overnight, traveling on the appropriately termed “Death Road” and making a very long trip in a canoe up a murky Amazon tributary where alligators and anacondas lurk. I swore off jungle adventures after that trip, but have since learned that beach vacations can involve their own hazards.

For the upcoming Mexico trip, I’m afraid carry-on luggage won’t cut it. I’m thinking I’ll need a trunk. I should probably pack a helmet, some syringes, a bed net and a few cases of citronella candles, just in case. Also some waterproof, protective footwear, since there are stinging jellyfish, rays and sea urchins. Not to mention sharks.

Hell, I should probably just bring a doctor along. Any takers?