Thursday, 8/16

The fight for chaise lounges on the beach begins at 7am as the sun rises. By 8am every available space is taken. I know this because we were having breakfast and I noticed everyone was heading to the beach instead of the restaurant.
Frank had a scuba refresher at 7:45 so I grabbed two places under an umbrella. I was informed that the umbrella I chose was broken. I hastily grabbed two other chairs; it turns out that one was broken. Too late to change again because, by then, everything was taken.
Frank chose a 3hr scuba excursion around the island & I headed off for 2 ½ hrs of snorkeling on another island.

Snorkeling—
Before even entering the water, it was obvious that there was abundant aquatic life waiting for us in the water. Fish were everywhere; it was like I was suddenly in the movie “Finding Nemo”. That huge school of fish that formed symbols (in the movie) was there—they actually changed the shape they were in. Their school was approximately 10 or so feet diameter!!! Every color of fish imaginable was present—fluorescent blue to stripes and polka dots. Every fish from Finding Nemo was accounted for (aside from the sharks).
I was unaware that it is customary to bring food for the fish so I was the only person empty-handed. The fish are accustomed to this and are extremely friendly. Their idea of personal space was not quite the same as mine. I now know what it is like to have hundreds of fans clamoring around you—I was an ocean rock star.
Frank’s dive was just as exciting; he even had a large turtle make an appearance.

The rest of the day was spent snorkeling and turtle watching. For snorkeling, you just swim out from the beach (good but not as great as the snorkeling trip). The resort checks out all of the equipment to you. The turtle-watching trip was on a glass bottomed boat. It was spectacular because we saw so many turtles (either green or leather-back). One turtle was enormous; probably 8 feet diameter. We also witnessed one of the most unexpected actions—turtle hostility. One turtle must have “invaded” the space of another because we saw both and then suddenly we saw the turtle become a high-speed torpedo, chasing the other turtle away. I never would have expected such speed—it was seriously fast.

As I sat on the beach writing in my journal, in my chaise lounge, I watched a man do laps on the beach. He had done several laps already and each lap was easily 400-600 meters. I was very tempted to join him. I commented this thought to Frank who quickly countered that he definitely wasn’t interested.

Room change
A little background on our room situation: we arrived a day early and they weren’t able to give us a room w/a king bed so we had a room w/two twins. No problem. They told us that we would move today (when our reservation started). Mid-afternoon we went to check to see when we were supposed to move. Turns out that there were no more king rooms. Hmmm…. Apparently a few of the king rooms had maintenance problems so we weren’t getting one; we were staying in our twin room and they promised we would move rooms tomorrow. Nothing was wrong with our twin room; it was a nice enough room, we just wanted a king bed. After talking with many people (finally the manager), we were offered an upgraded king room. The room isn’t part of the main hotel; it is a little farther away (new construction). It still has beach access though (quite a bit of stairs to climb to return). We were given a room with a beach/ocean view—wow, what an upgrade.

John Denver—When we arrived in Malaysia, I heard a John Denver song. I thought nothing of it. While in Taman Negara, Awan (our guide) told us that his favorite artist was John Denver & that he loved country music. Tonight, the band (think tropical mariachi) played John Denver. I think it is a trend!