Day 10

Well, all of your positive thoughts worked, because I made it to the 6AM snorkel and it was potentially the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Starting out, we saw a bunch of sharks and rays and then it got better from there. A giant manta ray came and swam past us and then, suddenly, we came upon a pod of dolphins at this ship wreck right off the reef. We snorkeled with them for about 30 minutes and got so close to them that we could have touched them if we wanted to (we didn’t because apparently they can attack if provoked). The dolphins plus the fact that there was an amazing sunrise to one direction and a double rainbow to the other made our guide, Nigel, scream out, “This is the best day ever!” (his name is really Dave, but we call him Nigel because he sounds like Nigel Thornberry…he responds to it). I snorkeled two other times, once in the open ocean again where we saw a bunch of amazing wildlife and a moray eel (it was gigantic…I think Alec peed himself), and once in the lagoon where we saw everything amazing again. I think I’ve probably touched about 10 sea turtles now…they like me. While we were out in the lagoon, a girl named Megan accidentally head butted one of the turtles. It was fine, but Alec started laughing underwater and almost drowned. It was hilarious. We saw another amazing sunset and are now about to present our final presentations on ecological relationships on the island. My group chose the “buff banded rail”, a bird on the island, because it is incredibly annoying and always steals everyone’s hash browns off their plate at breakfast. Katie, Derek have both been victims (I put that part in because they asked to be included…). Anyways, today has been another amazing day. I’m so sorry that we’re leaving tomorrow, but they say New Zealand is pretty incredible too. Hopefully we see some kiwi birds. Deuces.