Water Day

Monday, October 18, 2010 

We woke up and Paul, Johnny, and Quincy were out fishing.  They were out for quite a while.  They triumphantly returned with an aku.  They'd gotten an ono strike too, but it got away.  However, the way it shook itself free was probably pretty cool since Paul said it jumped in the air to get rid of the lure.  I am quite envious of the fact that they hung out with a school of dolphins for quite a while, and they were right in front of the dinghy showing off their jumps and flips. 

TC and I headed in to shore around 11, so that we could say hello to Flomina and Lee.  We usually like to go to shore in the late afternoon, but that was when the tides were best for surfing.  We also wanted to bring in the half of the aku that Paul was sharing with them. 

When we went in, we couldn't find Flomina or Lee, so we wandered over to the school where we knew that Flomina's sister is the principal there.  Lucky for us, school was getting out for lunch.  It was fun to chat with some of the kids. 

Flomina's sister helped us find Flomina.  Unfortunately, Flomina was really sick.  She had the flu, but she wanted us to stay and visit with her.  She said that she and her husband were excited to see our boat come back since their friends were back.  We also chatted with Claire (World Teach) for a bit.  It took her 4 different antiobiotics to get rid of the ear infection that she had the last time we were at Buoj, and ended up being in Majuro for much longer than she had expected. 

After our visit with Flomina, we moved the boat across the lagoon, so that Quincy and I could get a better view of the guys surfing.  Unfortunately, there were not any waves due to a reduction in swell, as well as a bad wind direction.  Paul snorkeled for a bit and found a big Napoleon wrasse.  Then Paul took Quincy and John in the dinghy to do a drift snorkel (the current quickly carried them back to the boat).  TC and I headed into the water too.  I got some paddling practice in with one of TC's smaller boards while TC snorkeled/swam beside me.  (It is a lot of work to paddle!)  I did have a mask around my neck so that I could snorkel once we got near the Napoleon wrasse.  As I paddled, TC noticed a smallish white tip shark that was very curious and not afraid.  It kept coming fairly close to the surface to investigate us.  That made me nervous, but TC kept an eye on it (and even he said it was interesting at how much he stayed near us).  We also saw a pretty big grouper and the Napoleon wrasse.

That night TC and I made our first dinner that we thought was just awful.  We were going for something different, so we broke out the Lachoy "Beef Pepper Oriental" since it had beef and quite a few vegetables.  I know, how could we expect to beef in a can to taste a good?  We tried to dress it up, but nothing really helped. As soon as we opened the "beef and sauce" can, I knew it was going to be bad. Oh well.  One bad meal out of many isn't too horrible.  Still, I apologize to Paul, Quincy and John for the awful meal.