So it might seem like I'm rambling, even ranting (because you all aren't used to that from me by now) about the beauty of this place. But here I am again, sitting on the top deck (not quite the place we jump from), under the best sky I've probably ever seen, Orion's right overhead and a little to my left (I'm seeing stars I didn't even know he had), Mars is straight ahead of me, maybe 30-45 degrees up, and nothing else I recognize, but it's beautiful. The boat is rocking slightly, there's guitar down below me I can faintly hear, the waves are lapping quietly all around, there's a pleasant breeze – right at room temperature – blowing from my right.

It's worth the ranting.

It took the boat a while to get anchored in and settled down, but they finally found a good spot. We jumped a bit, not as much as the other day. John had some troubles with his cannonball, but got it eventually, my jackknife didn't hurt as much as I expected, and while Nate couldn't get a good cannonball, the crazy kid did pull off a backflip. When Nate and I came up once, the dive leaders were waiting to push us back into the water, which was fun. I saw them and immediately said “I don't like the looks of this,” they got me once but the second time I grabbed the stair. They weren't trying too hard, of course. Besides that there was more sitting around and talking, last I checked John and Nate were playing chess (Swaffy was playing one of the crew earlier today), when I came upstairs earlier I thought one of the dive leaders had a really feminine voice, until I realized he was playing guitar while Becky sang. I'm sleeping on the boat tonight, maybe in the room up above, maybe on the deck, we'll see how the weather treats us.

Dinner was some excellent form of ramen, french fries, chicken and papaya. I failed at observation yet again, mixing up chili sauce for ketchup, but it tastes about the same, just spicier. The fries were unexpected, I haven't had any since before I left. They weren't the same as home, obviously, but that's not to say they weren't good. There was a salad too, mostly cucumber and onion, I didn't have much but it was also good. The dressing had enough of a kick to it, and I was running low on water, so that sort of limited me there. Also had a bite of Nikki's melted-re-solidified cadbury chocolate, which was wonderful. The breeze is coming from my left now, I think I'm going to go back to reading and stargazing. I'm tempted to go below and sit with the guitar, but man, it's nice up here.

Hope everyone had a good V-Day, even if I tend to sneer at it. Every human should the experience of this sky, if nothing else, everyone should be able to see the stars I see tonight. Sadly that can't occur, but I hope everyone is at least healthy and happy in the meantime.

Sunday, February 14th, roughly 9-9:10 PM local time