Sunday, the day that never ended

A wall of the ruins, very nice don't you think? The pretty ocean, complete with reef

August 27, 2006

Now it isn’t that I start out my Sunday mornings with the decision to get as tired as possible, it just kinda happens. Today we were going to the ruins, now to get to the ruins (which happened to be like on the other side of the island) we had to take the boats and one truck…see after our last experience out on the ocean it was decided that only 6 to 8 people should be on the boats at a time. So nine of us plus Raymond got to go on the yellow truck, I was one of the nine. So Gene, Peter, Allie, Eric, Mark, Marla, Sam, Joanne, and I piled into the yellow truck and Raymond headed off in the direction of the ruins. I told Gene that I thought that next time the really pushy people (the “pushy people” were the ones that HAD to be on the boat, so they could get a tan…they got more than that by the end of the day) should swim…but actually the really pushy people got really bad sunburn and voted for riding back in the truck later that afternoon, which was fine with me, cause that meant that I could go back on the boat and take pretty pictures.
Now the ride to where the boats would pick us up was not all that far away, like 45 minutes if that, and we had a lot of fun, until we hit a certain bump in the road (rather close to where we were going to wait for the boats) Raymond didn’t see it, it was more like a ditch instead of a bump, so he didn’t slow down. It was a good thing that I happened to be holding onto the truck because when we hit that bump I flew up into the air and then smashed back onto the bench that I was sitting on. All of us groaned in pain and Raymond slowed the truck and stopped, asking if all of us were o.k. Sure I thought, I’m fine…I just won’t be able sit for the next month…I think my tailbone just broke…thanks a lot. But all of us said that we were fine and we continued on and Raymond took it slow after that. (According to those that road back on the truck…he took it really slow on that section of the road)
Once we got to where we were going to meet the boats or rather boat…we all climbed out of the truck…I was like “kiss the sweet ground! I’m alive…for now that is” The younger boys (Mark and Eric) saw fish fins in the water break the surface of the water. Mark saw them first and yelled out “Fish!” and ran towards the water…when he got Eric’s attention they grabbed their snorkel gear and dove right in. Apparently they were certain that the fish would just come to them as if to say “catch me! And Eat Me!” Those two are really big into spear fishing…so they splashed around in the rather murky water until they were really bored or really freaked out from the random big fish in the water. From there the boys (Gene, Eric, Mark, and Peter) had rock throwing contests. There first target was Joanne who was sitting under a shade tree…she screamed at them and ran down the road, after chucking a few rocks at them. Then they spied a small coral island and fought over who was going to be “king of the island” it was decided that who ever was able to hit the island with a rock first would get the island…it was interesting to watch…because for five minutes they were all so close…coming within a foot from the island. But right when Mr. B. came with the boat Eric hit the island with a rock and became “King” from that point on whenever the guys saw an island they would claim it as “theirs” until one of them said “I’ll fight you for it”
Now while this was going on, between pauses in their so called “conversation” the girls, Raymond, Sam, and Mr. B took in the sights and saw birds flying and dolphins jumping out of the water. Mr. B drove the boat around in a big circle so that we could see the entire pod…there were so many of them and I got video of them jumping out of the water and they are not scared of the boats so they swam really close. And it was just so cool, we wanted to get out and swim with them…but Mr. B wouldn’t let us. Then we got to the drop off point…we had to walk on the reef…I thought that it was bad to do that…but apparently everyone does that here. So we did and we stepped on crunchy coral and squishy sea slugs, we tripped over pointy coral and waded through stringy grass, we scared salt water eels out of hiding and screamed when we saw them dart around out feet. Basically you were screaming “Oh gross, don’t bite my feet…oh…oh…help!” And those around you just laughed. Mark and Eric were like already at the island we were going to, they took off running across the island…they are like 19 years old…just finished their freshmen year of college…Anyway one of the boats floated through the little channel and Rusty offered us a ride and told us to go where the other girls were and they would pick us up. I was like hmm he is actually acting like a gentleman…but when we got over there he took the other girls and left us…I was like “Your gentleman badge has just been deleted from my book” But Mr. B and his boat came next and picked us up. Once at the island we all dove into the water…for some reason a lot of the girls can’t stand having to wear board shorts and t-shirts over their bikinis so off went the shorts and shirts and while snorkeling I was started by many a girl in rather revealing bikinis…not what I want to see when I am happily looking at pretty fish and not so pretty eels. I was like “Well hi, was what you wearing before to constricting or something?” I don’t get it we have guidelines that we agreed to follow, but apparently these girls wanted a tan…I don’t think that they realize that we are here for another 9 months…a lot can happen during that time.
So I swam away from those girls and found a hunk of rock with different types of coral and that random animal plant looking thing that clownfish live in…complete with three of the cutest most curious clownfish. (Sorry I can’t figure out how to spell it). And they had friend too, little black fish with two white spots, bright blue fish, clear fish, big fish…and lots of grass. I just watched the clown fish and they watched me…looking at all that they could see…and wondering if I my fingers were something good to eat. Cable told us that there were bigger fish at another part of the reef so we swam off in that direction to look. And there were bigger and prettier fish. Which was cool, just soon enough Mr. B came back to take us to the ruins…but on the way there our boat had to drop off some of the guys at the breakers where they were going to go surfing…the swells were so big for our little boat…and we were so crammed in there. The boys jumped out with their boards and paddled toward the surf…excited at the fact that they got to surf and hoping that they wouldn’t make contact with the sharp coral. The rest of us went to the ruins…which was cool and we got a lot of pictures and all but I was getting really tired and I was hungry and starting to wonder if I had gotten sunburned (I had of course) So all 20 of us piled into the small boat and Mr. B told us not to move at all…cause if we moved the boat might flip over (remember only 6 to 8 people should be on these boats, but there were 20 of us and we were on the smaller boat) And we were all perfectly still…it was a long ride back…we had to push the boat back through the coral and while Mr. B pushed we had to sit really still as to not upset the balance of the boat. But we made it through and made it back to where the yellow truck sat.
Now like I said before the really pushy girls had gotten their sun…in fact they got a lot of sun. So they wanted to ride back on the truck. So they all climbed out of the boat and onto dry land…the rest of us got comfy in the boat and headed on our way. It was nice except I could feel my legs burning and my feet burning and I was really tired. Then it started to rain and the rain hurt and the water started to get bumpy, so we bounced around and people tried to sleep and some of us tried to get comfy and keep the sun off of us. It was really hard to work that night on lesson plans when we got back…we were all really tired and didn’t want to grade papers or work on anything…we just wanted to sleep…but then again we had an awesome day…what better Sunday could we of had?