The windy weather has now passed and we're back to our bright and breezy norm. The sun is out again and everyone is back in the water! At the moment, they're actually all having an underwater fish ID session with the faculty member who lectures on Tropical Marine Ecology. Brett went along but I'm waiting here to take a few more students to the clinic in a little while. In the meantime though, I thought I'd post a few of the photos I've taken over the past week or two but just haven't gotten around to sharing yet. This might be sort of a hodge podge of a blog.
I never mentioned that when I flew to Provo the last time to pick up the students for this session, I had to take a cab into town to do a few errands for the center. I've found that getting a taxi from the airport is easy, but getting one to pick you up somewhere else in town and drive you back to the airport is extremely difficult! I had called 2 different taxi companies and been waiting for about 45 minutes outside the hardware store after finishing my errands before one actually showed up. And it turned out not to be one from either of the companies I called, but rather a taxi that was dropping someone else off at the store. I hailed him down though, and asked him if he would drive me back to the airport. He agreed to, but said that he had to pick up a group from one of the resorts of the other side of Provo first. I agreed to ride along (mostly because I was worried I might never get another chance at a ride back and would miss the students' arrival), but it turned out to be a really interesting trip.
The resort we went to was the famous Beaches, where folks spend between 8 and 10 thousand dollars a night (!) to stay. It's all inclusive and very glitzy. I don't foresee ever staying there myself, so it was kind of fun to drive around and imagine what the lives of the people who stay there must be like. The taxi driver couldn't remember the suite number of the group he was called to pick up, so we ended up stopping in at each of the three sections (Italian, French, and English) to ask. Turns out, the group had gotten into a different cab to get to the airport and so we had to make the trip back there by ourselves. The driver was more than a little ticked that he had spent a good hour, and probably a quarter tank of gas, driving around looking for them, but he also said that kind of thing is typical. Could be why none of the taxis I called were in a hurry to come pick me up!
Several of us played a game of frisbee a few days ago, which was really fun. We got a great game going, and there are even a few students here this session who play competitively for their universities so it was a slightly higher level of play than usual. It was so windy though that almost every throw carried the disk way up into the air and landed it outside of the playing field, which meant it took forever to actually score a point, but we had a great time playing anyway. The only real downside was that I bit the dust going for a catch and scrapped up my knee. A fall like that on grass wouldn't have mattered much, but on the sandy/rocky/glass and donkey poop littered dirt turf we play on here, it hurt!
As Brett mentioned, he hasn't gotten to dive nearly as much as he would have liked to in the past few days, so he's been practicing his diving skills indoors instead. In the photo below, he's mastering the maneuver of extracting his dive knife from its case on his BCD and reinserting it again.
One more thing... pictured below is the world's largest hermit crab! I haven't gotten around to adding him to the species list yet, but I'll try to do that soon. (There are so many interesting creatures here, it's really hard to keep up with!)
The resort we went to was the famous Beaches, where folks spend between 8 and 10 thousand dollars a night (!) to stay. It's all inclusive and very glitzy. I don't foresee ever staying there myself, so it was kind of fun to drive around and imagine what the lives of the people who stay there must be like. The taxi driver couldn't remember the suite number of the group he was called to pick up, so we ended up stopping in at each of the three sections (Italian, French, and English) to ask. Turns out, the group had gotten into a different cab to get to the airport and so we had to make the trip back there by ourselves. The driver was more than a little ticked that he had spent a good hour, and probably a quarter tank of gas, driving around looking for them, but he also said that kind of thing is typical. Could be why none of the taxis I called were in a hurry to come pick me up!In other news, the spread of the stomach bug here has slowed, but I wouldn't say it's entirely under control yet. A few of the staff members have been stricken too, but Brett and I are still in the clear. Keep your fingers crossed!
Several of us played a game of frisbee a few days ago, which was really fun. We got a great game going, and there are even a few students here this session who play competitively for their universities so it was a slightly higher level of play than usual. It was so windy though that almost every throw carried the disk way up into the air and landed it outside of the playing field, which meant it took forever to actually score a point, but we had a great time playing anyway. The only real downside was that I bit the dust going for a catch and scrapped up my knee. A fall like that on grass wouldn't have mattered much, but on the sandy/rocky/glass and donkey poop littered dirt turf we play on here, it hurt!
One more thing... pictured below is the world's largest hermit crab! I haven't gotten around to adding him to the species list yet, but I'll try to do that soon. (There are so many interesting creatures here, it's really hard to keep up with!)
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