Island Adventures

This morning it hurt to get out of bed. I got up, took some ibuprofin and got back in bed, unwilling to get up to start my day.

You see, yesterday (10/18/08) we (Jaimie, John, Scott, Travis, and I) decided to go on an adventure. We got up at the crack of dawn (okay, it was really only 7:20) and we took showers and prepared for our day. We packed a lunch, donned our chacos and flipflops, and headed out for an excursion.

We decided to go island hopping. By this, I mean we decided to walk from island to island. Here in the Marshall Islands, there are many tiny islands that are either empty or few people live on them, and they are all within walking and wading distance away. We wanted to see how far out we could get before the tide came in and stranded us. Near the first island out, the boys found a old rusty sunken ship. John wanted to climb out there, but he didn't want to go by himself. Travis said, "Ok, I'll go with you." And Scott, feeling a bit left out said, "I guess since all the other men are doing it, I need to to." We decided to stay and take pictures.

Apparently Travis was the only one aware we were taking pictures.

Here we are wading out to one of the islands.

This is the on the first island, we were rather excited as you can see.

We got TEN islands out! Mind you, we started walking out at around 9 AM (we walked part of the way to Rita, and hitchhiked the rest), and we took a break around 11:45 to eat lunch. The tenth island MUST be owned by an American. It has to be some sort of vacation home the house was the only thing on the island, along with a fancy treehouse, canoes, and their own dock. We were afraid that the people who owned it might come out and tell us to leave, but no one was there.


Upon arrival at our new-found favorite island (it made us feel like we were in America for a few minutes), we ate our lunches and made jokes and gave our poor feet a break. Soon after, it began to pour. Add some roaring wind to that and it gets a bit chilly. The only place we could find cover to keep us dry was under the canoes (thanks to Jaimie for finding it).

Disclaimer: I realize it looks as though we are both naked, but I can assure you, we are not :)
That is us hiding under the canoes. It was really stormy!

Anyways, imagine our dismay when we all realized that we had to walk ALL the way back! It was a rather rough trip. It sometimes rained, and most of the time it was extremely windy. The hardest part, however, was walking through the water. We all had water shoes (except for John, and then his 13 year old sandals broke haha) so we didn't step on any coral, but since the bottom of our shoes are not that thick, you still feel every thing you step on. My feet are rather sore today.

I got a bit burnt since it was so overcast yesterday. And yes, I always remember mom's words "You always get sunburnt worse when it is overcast!" It is true. And last night I lathered myself with aloe vera and slept like a baby.

It was a nice Sabbath and definitely worth the hurting feet and sunburnt arms.