Sunday, March 04, 2007
Our first snorkeling stop was just off White Beach. They lowered a bamboo ladder a few feet into the water for us, gave us a mask and snorkel, and then we hopped in. This was really my first experience playing in the ocean, and adjusting to salt water took me a few minutes. That, and my mask was too loose, so I had to climb back up onto one of the boat's braces and reconfigure the whole thing. But once I got the mask and snorkel put together I had one of the best times I'd ever had. The water was so clear, and I found myself staring down at an immense coral reef - albeit a dead one. The coral was just bare bones, literally, killed off by pollution from humankind and from changes in the ocean temperature. But there were still fish and some plants down there, white and brown, for the most part, the same color as the coral, but they were there. This bobbing facedown in the water was how I got my sunburn.
¶ 1:03 AM 
