* Australia doesn't like free Internet. It also doesn't have Internet in the Outback, so I am sorry I haven't posted these but I haven't had Internet... And then I had to pay $15 for it just now... It will hopefully last me the rest of the week here though!
I also am posting posts from the end of June and the beginning of July called:
Flight of the Gibbons
Koh Phangan
Koh Samui
On to the post...
This was only 5 days ago but it seems like ages ago.
We had to get up pretty early this morning for breakfast (which was amazing- best breakfast in Indonesia).
The snorkeling company we were going with was actually just at the end of the road from our resort. It is owned by the same guy who owns the resort. Kubuku! If I didn't already mention it, he is actually a CEO as well.
At the office we were fitted for snorkel masks, flippers, and received a snorkel. I hate trying to figure out what size snorkel mask I need. It's so hard to figure it out. They always say if you can breathe in and it sticks to your face that it fits. I absolutely always have a hard time snorkeling because I can never find a mask that actually fits. My head is too small. They gave me 2 options in the office. One was a kids mask but even though it fit my face, the eye part cut off the last third of my eye which was uncomfortable and a strange way to view the world.
We then got in 2 vans and were carted out to a large hut. Rob described it well. "So it will be us and 200 of our best friends going snorkeling today." Luckily, it was pretty much just us, plus one older lady from Tasmania on the boat. It was similar to being on the boat in Cambodia but this boat was actually nicer I think.
The surrounding area is beautiful. I can see why it's a national park. It was a lot of green, grassy islands covered in beautiful green trees. And again, the blue sky made it even that more beautiful. The water was very clear and 3 different amazing shades of blue. Dark blue, turquoise, and a light sea green color (I think that's the crayon name?). When we were in more shallow areas you could totally see right through to whatever was in the water. And that was a lot.
After our first boat ride we arrived on an island where we attached to more boats that were attached to the dock. You're not allowed to use an anchor in the park.
As we were walking off the dock we saw a huge blue starfish right off the bat! I tried to take a photo of it but through the water it just looks very distorted. Later on in the same area there were angel fish.
I was surprised that we actually started on a beach instead of having to just jump over the side of the boat. Marion cut her toe before we even got in the water. The beach had a lot of sharp rocks and dead washed up corals on it. Also a ton of huge shells.
Putting on the flippers and walking into the water was tough to say the least. There are huge areas of sharp rocks you have to walk on to get past the shallow water to snorkel. It's not deep enough to swim either. With the flippers on you have to walk backward (way easier to walk so you're not catching the front of your flippers in the sand) into the ocean. Although the flippers sucked for walking, I couldn't believe how much less tired I was at the end of the day while using them. Usually after snorkeling I am drained. I wasn't as tired today and I think it's because of the fins. They move you really well through the water.
This snorkel sight was amazing. Definitely the best snorkel sight on this trip, I can't remember how other snorkel sights on previous trips would compare. But literally, this was so cool. Now I remember why I used to want to do Marine Biology. Ocean life is incredible. There aren't even words to describe it.
Before getting too far out there was a lion fish resting in some coral. There were the typical sea urchins all over. Then the arrays of coral and other fish were spectacular. I couldn't remember all of the names but I recognized brain coral and fan coral. There was also a coral that looked like a clam and literally looked like it was breathing in and out if you watched it long enough. There were long silver pike fish, bright colorful rainbow fish, huge parrot fish, I swam through some small schools of minnows. Just everything. I didn't see any sea cucumbers though. But there was so much to look at and you could see everything so well. And, it reminded me of Finding Nemo because there was even a drop off. There wasn't too much past the drop off but you could see a bunch of life all the way down the drop off. Very cool.
This whole experience was also combined with me semi dying every once in a while because I got water in my mask. I had already switched into a smaller mask while I was closer to shore. I had to keep floating on my back to fix it because I didn't want to stand on or accidentally kick the coral.
I contemplated taking my camera into the water and putting it on its underwater setting but I didn't want to risk the screen breaking like Courtneys did so I decided not to. It would have made for some really amazing photos though. So much cool stuff!
At this place we had about an hour break to rest after snorkeling and eat our food. I had ordered a chicken sandwich and holy monkeys was it amazing! So good. It was real chicken and there were some veggies and cheese on it. Delectable. It came with a juicy slice of watermelon as well.
We still had a while after lunch before we were getting back on the boat to head to a second snorkeling spot. There was a beach area that we could walk up and down. There were a ton of shells so I used shells to write Bali 2013 for a photo. I could read it well. Marion notified me a lot of people had a difficult time reading it when she showed them the photo. I liked it. I also wrote one in sand with a few shells around it.
At the second snorkeling sight, we did just have to jump ship to get into the water. The snorkeling was still good, you could see a lot, but the first sight was way better. This area was also really choppy which made it more difficult to snorkel and I ended up drinking a lot of sea water. Yummm. Not. I probably spent 15 minutes coughing.
I did see a fish take a shit. I had never seen that before. It was swimming along and little drops of darker colored stuff just came out from it. In both snorkeling areas there was that stinging sensation. It doesn't feel very good. It happened in Koh Phangan as well and Brett said something about little plankton or fish or something that produce that sensation on your skin. But, at one point I was talking to Katie and all of a sudden let out a yelp. Something had touched my elbow and it hurt really bad! When I got out of the water there was a mark on my arm that was red and raised. Rob said it looked like an old scar. It wasn't. It was a jellyfish sting. Little bugger hurt! I didn't even see it. I can't imagine getting stung by a larger one. We joked about peeing on each other because other people had been stung as well but we didn't. I did see maybe a 1 or 1 and a half inch jelly fish at one point and swam away so fast, ha.
That was pretty much the highlights of snorkeling. Anne, the lady from Tasmania lost her flip flops in the under part of the boat so we were lifting up various wooden boards to try to find them. We found one right away, the other took a bit to find.
When we got back to the resort I took a pit stop in the bathroom and headed to the pool. It was around 3:30pm. I caught up with Jill to see how her day was. Her, Sinte, Camilla, Marie, and David didn't come snorkeling with us.
After about an hour relaxing and chatting in the pool, Jill and I pulled ourselves out and walked down to the beach. It was about 700m away. It was okay. Pretty for some pictures and not too busy. It was black sand which was different. It wasn't anything amazing though.
After that we tried to eat because we were starving but we were supposed to eat dinner at 7 because they were performing traditional dancing for us at 8. We did get free afternoon tea though which was actually very good. It was served with some type of bean pastry thing covered in coconut? Whatever it was, it tasted amazing.
Finally, it was dinner time and I had chili prawns. It was good but I still think the prawns at home taste better. They also come without heads...
The dancing was really nice. It was similar to most of the other dancing I've seen out here. Although, I think the Bali dancing was probably my least favorite and the one that was not as interesting. It wasn't as complicated and intricate. It was still nice though. All the performers were young girls so maybe that was part of the reason. The costumes were similar and on par with all the other Asian dance costumes I've seen. The music was nice as well. It seemed very repetitive. After 1 minute of a dance I felt like I lost interest a bit.
I then spent about an hour trying to buy my books. It was annoying. I really hate that. And, grad school books are so expensive! Not good. I think I'm spending about $550 on books this semester. Fun!
After being exhausted from buying my books... Don't laugh, it's hard work! Comparing prices, trying to figure out if its the correct book and edition. Oy!... I went and crashed.
We peace out for Sanur around 8am tomorrow.
Also, I remembered at about 11pm that I hadn't taken my malarone pill for the day. So that's a little annoying. I took it about 3 or 4 hours after eating and you're supposed to take it with food. It was fine though. Didn't puke anything up! I also think I missed one another day because I thought I was supposed to finish on the 4th but I have enough pills for the 5th. However, I didn't really get mosquito bites so I'm not too worried about malaria.
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