Day 21: Searching and finding Nemo

07/20/2016

The next day, Gudi drags me to breakfast, which I leave after a short time and drag myself back to the room. In retrospect, it was a drama when considering the amount of untouched food just waiting to be devoured.

Fortunately, after sleeping for another 2 hours, I suddenly feel quite fit and visit Gudi at the beach. There, we decide to go snorkeling together. I have to admit, considering how I felt during the night, I'm doing pretty well again - only temporarily, more on that later.

I have never snorkeled in such an environment before and I am totally thrilled. The description of "diving into another world" really applies here. The water from our beach is not only wonderfully blue, but when jumping into it, we have to be careful not to land on the coral reef. And this coral reef really offers a view that I have never seen before. Schools of fish in infinite variety dance around unknown formations that look like a mixture of rocks and plants. The fish shine in all colors and sizes and seem to have no fear of us. After finding many little clownfish - all of which are of course named Nemo - Gudi decides to go back to the beach. I stay a little longer because I am so fascinated by the events underwater (and now that I know what is underneath me, I am not so eager to touch the ground).

On my way back, I discover 3 medium-sized stingrays, which in my opinion are not sure whether to ignore me or attack me (their very long spines look quite threatening). And when a shark swims in front of my camera and already sees me as its lunch, I flee and quickly make my way towards the safe shore. There, I analyze the events with the help of the previously taken high-resolution underwater shots and realize that the fear of being eaten by the shark was relatively unrealistic (as the little guy was at best 40 cm long - these diving mask lenses distort like crazy, I was sure I saw a 4m individual).

After that, I take another nap, which unfortunately extends to a rather long period of feeling miserable. In the end, I sleep until 7 pm.

We spend the last evening on this island with a shared dinner, which is crowned by the enthusiastic emptying of my stomach contents on the beach in front of the restaurant terrace. In summary: off to bed. What a day.