We were incredibly excited to have Sandy and Cal come out and visit during Spring break. We had an awesome time with them and did so many fun things! We took them all over the entire atoll, had them swimming with sharks, manta rays, an octopus and more, as well well as sailing the lagoon at sunset! They got here Saturday, March 31st and were given a tour of the island that included our finest dining (Subway), some sunbathing, and snorkeling. Here are some pictures from our week as well as a few from Matt's Birthday.
This picture was from shark pit overlooking the ocean. This was taken on their last day here, so we were all sad to see them go.
We reserved a boat and went up to Biji with our friends Mark and Tarah Yurovchak. Here you can see everyone tied on to the boat floating in the lagoon. This was Matt's first time driving the boat, but we made it there and back just fine. We really enjoyed the blue water and the sun, as well as some snorkeling and relaxing!
The next day we went out in the evening on a sunset sailboat cruise. The boat above passed us, we weren't on that one but it was similar to give you an idea of what we were riding on and what it looked like on the water. The sunset cruise was new for us as well and we really had an amazing time. We started out about 2 hours before sunset and got in about an hour after the stars came out. Mindi had made dinner so we ate out under the stars on the boat.
Here is Mindi and Sandy on the sailboat right before we took off into the lagoon.
We also had the opportunity to fly up to Roi-Namur, even though we thought we might not be able to at one point. We had an awesome time laying out and enjoying the sunshine. We also really enjoyed the missile burgers, onion rings and pizza at the outrigger on Roi. Here is Sandy and Cal posing on the scuba dock.
We went over to Ebeye one afternoon as well and here we are getting onto the ferry to take us over to Ebeye. When we got there a couple of our students were waiting to meet us to give us a tour of the island. This was really fun to have a tour from someone who lives there.
Here is a picture of Ebeye right after we got off the dock and were walking onto the island.
Sandy and Cal got up real early most mornings because of the time change, and we got up with them one morning and went out and saw the sunrise. Here is a picture of that sunrise.
For Matt's Birthday on Monday he wanted to go scuba diving, so here is a picture from out on the boat as we are about to go and do a dive on the Prinz Eugen sunken ship. Mindi made Matt breakfast, gave him gifts and made it an awesome day! It was an awesome birthday! We had a great time diving with our friends and they surpised Matt with an ice cream cake right before we went out diving.
The picture above is from our dive on the Prinz Eugen. We were down the side of it and Mindi pointed out what the view toward the surface was like! A huge school of fish was swimming overhead at just the right time.
We also did a dive on Troy's Coral head, which is famous for having sharks on it! This whitetip swam about 10-20 feet away from us and they told us later that it had a fish in its mouth, but we didn't see it! Matt loves seeing sharks, so he was super excited about this dive. Mindi doesn't get quite as excited about sharks, but she enjoyed the dive, too!
The top of Troy's Coral head is in about 15 feet of water and it is just covered in colorful fish! Here are a few of them. The coral head it out in the middle of the lagoon all by itself and definitely attracts a lot of neat fish to it.
Great birthday, Thanks hun.
