I told Denny I had to write a lot tonight, he asked “why? This is just another day, we didn't do anything today, another day on the Biomes trip.” I said exactly, that's why my journal doc is over 40 pages now. (48, in fact.) We do so much every day, that EVERY day is that fantastic.

I napped a bit more on the boat, we got close to the atoll, climbed onto the dive boat and approach the atoll. It's cool, there's a bridge of boats, the newest boat to show up tethers at the end and you walk across them to get to the dock. We got there and met our host, who apparently has been reading our blogs. (I'm saying now, this entry is not made up in anyway for his benefit, today was really that great.) I got excited to see lots of crabs on the beach, eight or more. He led us through the village, small place, about 800 people all told, but very nice. Interestingly, I saw signs that said to remove batteries from waste all over the place, and there were water bottles in a tree, surrounding the fruit I think. Not sure what that was for, protection from insects maybe? (PS added days later: giant fruits bats. It's for giant fruit bats.)

So we're walking, it's hot, it's sunny, we turn the corner and there's a circle of chairs arranged in the shade with about two dozen coconuts sitting on a table in the middle. We sit and they prepare the coconuts for us, straws and all. I swear, it was like a dream, even more surreal than arriving at the Big House in Thailand and just having food shoved at us. Here we are, on an island paradise with the bluest water I've ever seen, the best white sand beaches, sitting under the shade of trees, drinking coconut milk. It's something from TV or a movie, not the life of some college kid from Ohio. So we sat and relaxed, after we finished drinking the coconut they cut it open for us and we learned to use a piece of the outer shell to scoop out the meat. Mine was mostly milk, thin meat, but good, and I had a little bit of Zypy's which had thicker meat on it. I don't like coconut in candy or on ice cream back home, but the real thing? Tasty.

From there we went to a little shop, which had some very cool things. I haggled more on accident than anything else. I found a PERFECT gift (and I promise you'll never guess what it is), the guy said 25, 27 with international fee on my card. I was hemming and hawing, not trying to haggle, just honestly not sure, I said “it's nice, I just don't know if it's $25 nice.” He had to take a phone call, and while he was doing that I decided yeah, it was worth it. Well, I say “oh, why not” and am about to hand him the card when he goes and tells the other guy it's too expensive, and the other guy reduces is to $20, or 22. Hey, sounds great for me. Allen was also buying some nice chopsticks and a journal, and our orders got mixed up, and then the group was trying to leave, but it all worked out. Well worth it, I might stop in that store again before we leave.

We went to our homestay, a very nice place with a western-style shower, no AC but a powerful fan, nice closets and drawers and a firm queen bed. I'm rooming with Matt right now. Very nice house, very nice room. In the main room there's a bathtub that's been converted into an aquarium, mostly koi, I thought that was neat too. We got changed and all that and headed out to snorkel, though I did take a while with the sunscreen and we were the last ones out. We caught up with them at the dock, though, walked across the boat bridge to the dive boat, and from there out to our snorkel site.

Wow.

Definitely the healthiest coral we've seen all trip, and there was LOTS of it. Some stuff growing right near the surface in shallow water, and then a beautiful drop-off and coral ledge going way way down. So many different kinds of fish, I don't remember half of them, though one of the dive instructors carrying a pufferfish and poking at it was fun to watch. We also had a lionfish pointed out to us (and the guy almost ran into me, I was right on top of him, woops), some people saw a starfish though I missed it, there were clams, so many different kinds of coral, it was absolutely fantastic. And this was all just snorkeling, too. Allen and I got a bit of a ways off from the group, but we made it back, he's far better at going under while snorkeling than I am. Something to work on. There was this one fish, three different shades of green, kind of neon, big, it was gorgeous. My only regret is that I don't have a waterproof camera. The sun was setting, too, so you'd look up from the water and see one of the best, reddest sunsets out on the horizon of the ocean.

Yeah, talk about a view.

We got out, back onto the dive boat, to the main boat, to one of the best meals of the whole trip. This rivaled the buffet in India. There were pasta shells (I haven't had pasta since Hawaii), some delicious red sauce, chicken, red snapper (one of the best fish of my entire life), pineapple, probably the best banana of my entire life, and a salad that I actually wish I had eaten a little bit more of, it was so good. So, so good. That took us a while to eat because we ate so much, island-sleepers ate first (10 on the island, 12 on the boat while we're here). While I was waiting to head out, some of the dive instructors were sitting on the deck of the boat, one with bongos and one with a guitar, it was a cool scene to see. We got back on the dive boat, headed back in, and I got the best view of stars of my entire life. Kris, this would make your cornfields look like they had streetlights every 5 feet. The whole “Milky Way” thing doesn't really make sense until you get a good view of the night sky in a really dark place, and this was that and more. The best view of Orion of my life, and I'm sure there were dozens of other constellations in there I missed. A great view of Mars as well. Absolutely stunning seeing all the stars, and even better, I even saw a satellite pass over. Not a plane, not a planet, no, a satellite. I gaped at that most of the boat ride back, then we got in, almost got lost, got led to our homestay thankfully, I rinsed off in the shower and that's that.

One of the best days of the trip for me personally, I think. Some of the best food, some of the best views, absolutely stunning.

Friday, February 12th, roughly 8:10-8:30 PM local time