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Saturday, April 18, 2009
Reminder: Jaime invited you to join Facebook...
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Diving with the hookah
Today, the Don Quixote crew went on an underwater exploration. This
exploration was supported by our new hookah. A hookah, for those of
you who don't know, is a pump that takes air from the surface of the
water and pumps it into hoses and sends it to you, compressed and
ready for breathing. This way you can stay underwater for long
amounts of time without having to come up for air.
exploration was supported by our new hookah. A hookah, for those of
you who don't know, is a pump that takes air from the surface of the
water and pumps it into hoses and sends it to you, compressed and
ready for breathing. This way you can stay underwater for long
amounts of time without having to come up for air.
The area we decided to "dive" on was a clump of rocks that were about
20 yards from the shore of an island named Las Tres Marietas. The
three Marias. The rocks were mostly rock, but there is evidence of
coral beginning to take over. It's a really good sign. There were a
large amount of fish there that didn't really seem afraid of humans,
so you were able to swim with the groups of parrot fish. Just watch
out, they bite.
There were also eels and small octopi that hide in the coral. I
spotted two octopi in the same little cave. They were probably three
inches long with bodies the size of a half dollar. I spotted them as
they were moving, otherwise I never would have found them. They
changed color almost immediately to their surroundings. This is
called camouflage coloration.
My favorite fish was a small blue one. It had amazing colors. It
started at the nose with a dark blue and then darkened back to the
tail. There were three turquoise blue spots on the back that stood
out but made it look really bright and colorful. It was feeding
mostly on algae, but occasionally it would go to a chunk of soft
coral and bite off of that. It didn't swim in any schools of fish and
hid in chunks of coral alot.
The coolest experience swimming was when I swam with the fish
schools. They were very large fish, but they swam pretty slowly so I
was able to to drift in the middle of them. They didn't really seem
to mind me at all. A few little fish nibbled at my feet when I was
with them. It tickled my feet so much that I laughed hard enough to
scare them away.
Over all diving was a really good experience for me. It is definitely
something that I expect to do again soon.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year
Happy New Year! Welcome to the year of 2009.
At the end of each year, I like to look back at all the things that happened. It dawned on me that this time last year I lived in a house. My family was just getting ready to take off on our voyage. I was also in the United States and it was snowy. In just one year, my life has turned around so grandly that I am almost living a different life. I live on a boat. I travel. I have met amazing new people and cultures, and I realized something very important. I thought about this for awhile.
What would it be like to go back to how my life used to be? To live in a house and go to school and enroll in school activities. I thought about this all night. And I realized that if I went back to the life I seem to want so badly, I wouldn't be happy. I wouldn't be living in the sense that I feel is right. All of this thinking made me look at myself and my family and realize something extremely important. I am happy.
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