day 104
-----Original Message----- From: Sent: Fri, 26 Aug 2022 10:34:44 -1000 Subject: day 104
Ia orana, Megan here. This morning I went to shore, connected to the internet, and begrudgingly began the process of exploring contingency plans for getting home. In addition to this drudgery, I googled a few pressing questions and learned the following: 1. Why do you find hermit crabs all piled together in a group? Hermit crabs are social creatures and will sleep and eat together. So essentially they are somewhere mid slumber party when I find them all hanging out together and that is precious. 2. What is the orange vine we keep seeing? It is the Taino’a vine, a hemiparasite - which means it both makes and takes energy. It’s also allegedly called the love vine and can be used to treat gonorrhoea and haemorrhoids. And jellyfish stings. 3. Why do we pee so much when snorkelling? According to the website I loaded, being buoyant and being cold both cause blood to move out of your extremities and into your main body cavity. This causes your body to believe that you have too much fluid and that you ought to get rid of a bunch - by peeing.
In the afternoon we were visited by a number of manta rays, who we originally suspected to be dolphins due to their larger than anticipated dorsal fins. This made them rather a surprise once we dived in, with initially confusing shapes to figure out when we were expecting dolphins. Qwalen joked that they were a pack of tiger sharks and I confess at one moment while swimming toward them and becoming increasingly confused about their identity, I considered this a real possibility. Fortunately not. And later, while walking along the outer reef’s edge, I did see dolphins! A large pod racing not far away, though still with time to flip into the air. Dolphins always have time for a bit of fun eh, a good lesson. Maururu!
Miriam: What an incredible experience it was to swim with the Manta Rays! They were massive and so beautiful, their wings undulating with such grace, gliding and turning in the water long tails whipped out behind them, white mutton chops dangling below their mouths, everything about them completely mesmerising. Tempering my movement to learn to swim after them without chasing them, attempting to sync behaviour enough that they allowed me to behold them. The outer reef snorkeling was lovely as well though I’m a bit frustrated by my ears/sinuses and challenges to equalisation. I feel inspired by the freediving and foraging book Ellen brought and hoping I can develop the techniques necessary to improve. Another lovely day in paradise.
Jamie, after waiting for rain to clear and the porridge to settle we went to the outer reef for a snorkel. Once again amazing viz but not too many fish but super fun diving! Nice day indeed. WOD - deft. Deft - nimble and able. Often used to describe hands. Used in sen: alas, in my captains old age she’s rapidly getting blind and deft.
Q here After the wind clocked around on us last night and we wound up smashing and bashing with the waves coming from behind the boat and the plethora of dinghy and kayaks bonking in the most sporadic fashion against the haul of the boat(really loudly). We all(well almost all of us) took turns wandering around the deck thinking “there must be something that can be done to make sleep possible” and then promptly lay back down hoping it would just go away….. after laying awake all night, knowing it must be almost dawn, I was gazing at the stars with Ellen and she pointed out that Saturn has not really moved all that much, my heart sank, I looked at my clock, 1am….. not even half way there. Nao and I mustered to shuffle the stern anchor rode up to the bow so we could turn to wind. (We have had a stern anchor out to make the boat more stable for the boat work, remember? We are hear for boat work….) Ahhhh, we get to squeak in at least a couple hours of sleep. This morning we repositioned the main anchor a bit further away from the sporadic bombies, so we could spin freely in any direction the wind throws at us, which recently is all of them. This entailed Ellen and Mim in the dinghy pulling up on a rope attached to the anchor and me and Nao diving to the anchor and prying with all out might to free it from the fine ground coral sand, which we reacently learned is biproduct of parrot fish eating vegetation off of coral and oops, eating some coral at the same time. Long story short, the next time you are basking on a beautiful coral sand beach watching a beautiful sunset, remember, 70% of that sand was at one point fish poop.
Naomi here, Big porridge up for brekkie and then tonight pizza night ! With real cheese. Do you guys think our cutless bearing will arrive tomorrow? Will Megan yell in her sleep again tonight? Last night after we finally settled the boat after hours of smashing and crashing we finally had a peaceful movement as the boat turned into the wind chop, just as I was settling back in to bed feeling pleased and relieved the boat was so much more comfy and quieter Megan interjected with a gasp and yelled NO !! with such emotion and force that I yelled in fright, and felt somewhat insulted , I was just trying to make the boat more comfy? Turns out it had nothing to do with the motion of the boat she said it had to do with rabbits or something. Here’s to a full nights sleep….
Bluebird out!