We woke up pretty early, but it was a leisurly morning with packing and breakfast. We made coffee, but the only way we could get a hote enough fire for the little camp espresso machine (style counts!) was to use a coconut husks soaked in white gas - each one was enough to makes one serving. There was a slight rush to get gear together to get picked up, but we were ready when the came.
Fist dive was at Ngemelis Wall (Big Drop Off) what Lonely Planet calls the finest wall dive in the world. It was pretty good, but I felt like I'd definitely seen better. To be fair, I was a little distracted - I'd jumped in the water without my weight belt and then decided I didn't need it, which I didn't, until my tank started to get empty and therefore more bouyant - I ended up having to spend a lot of effort just to stay down. Even so Stacy, Sue and I ended up staying down a lot longer than the rest of the boat. So when we came up there was hardly any surface break, which would have been very bad for the second dives bottom time. Luckily the ride out to the next spot was very rough so it took a long time.
The second dive was another wall - New Drop Off. I liked it a lot better. There was a very curous (and very large) Napleon Wrasse that stayed with us the entire dive. There were also several turtles. After most of the others had already gone up we met up with two turtles that did not mind us at all and swam with us for a while - very nice.
We had lunch at Three Dog Island, after eating I walked around on the beach and then read. The dive boat took us to Jellyfish Lake to snorkel with the millions of non-stinging jellyfish. From the dock you hike up and then down in to a salt water lake in the middle of the island. Swimming through the densly packed jellyfish was very cool, very beautiful and incredibly surreal. Unfortunately being a sucker for turtles I'd used up most of my camera's battery (and storage) on the previous dive so I was only able to get a few pictures. After Jellyfish Lake the boat took us to another snorkeling site - Clam City to see the gian giant clams. Most of them were a good three feet across! Back at the dive shop we were in a rush because Kyle had a plane to catch.
Stacy and I set out to get diner at a Thai restaurant we'd heard about, but it was closed. We ended up going to a random nearby Chinese place, that was amazingly good - much better than I had expected the Thai to be. The manager spoke no English, but would pantomime to show us how to eat each dish (what to mix, which sauces, etc.). We walked for a bit, and I ended up buying another cheap Hawaiian shirt to avoid having to do laundry. We took a taxi to the seedy port area to meet Sue, Todd, Bill, and Lynn (Bill and Sue's old principle at Chuuk) at a waterfront bar. After a few beers everyone was burned out and we headed back to the house. I tried tosort through some of my pictures, but I was so tired I fell asleep with the lights on and my camera on and in my hands.
