After breakfast, we headed out into the 70 degree weather and even colder water (self-professed water wimp – remember!) It was COLD water. I quickly switched my short wetsuit for a full one. Once I got used to the odd feeling of breathing under water coupled with the magnified sound of my breath (and it doesn’t get any less weird the more I snorkel), I noticed bright blue sea stars and turd-like sea cucumbers along the sandy bottom. Then I noticed the fish. Butterfly fish, outlined in yellow as if backlit by their own sun; Moon wrasse with it’s pincher-like tail; the silvery whip of a fish called appropriately, Long Tom; black and white striped Humbugs; iridescent Parrot fish with their ridiculous bill-like heads. All hiding, darting, and nibbling along the branching corals. Suddenly, I was swimming with a sea turtle, a lumbering, sweet beastie not more than five feet away. A slow barge among swift sailboats. We swam together for a few minutes along the shore, then parted ways.

In the afternoon, we walked along the reef at low tide, careful to step on the sand and not the coral. Two sea turtles swam in small pools as we stood in knee deep water, both with beautiful shells of patterned brown. I held peeing sea cucumbers and a bleeding sea hair (just looks like blood, really just a defense mechanism). Marveled at the succulent pink and black glossy lips of huge living clams. Read my book (Dirt Music by Tim Winton, a well-known Aussie author).

The students
There are 14 students on this course (12 women; 2 very brave men). They have clearly bonded as a group and hail mostly from the south and the Midwest. One particularly ebullient student, Becky, is from my homestate of Ohio and makes her fellow students morph their bodies into the letters O-H-I-O at every new location. Ah, we Ohioans are a proud lot. Angelina does Tai Chi in the early a.m. Clayton takes long walks along the beach alone. The twins from South Carolina, Laura and Caroline, are always together and have a dual sense of humor that cuts like coral thru delicate southern skin. Lynn makes sure everyone has warm towels after their chilly night snorkel. Annette sees her first octopus and is beside herself with excitement. Rich loves every minute of everything and is always game for another snorkel, another beer, or another reef walk. Nora will do anything for a Tim-Tam (Aussie equivalent of a Twix bar). They all play frisbee and cards, and are truly a wonderful group to travel with. The three CIS students loved working with Ethan (our program coordinator) and found the application and predeparture process smooth, helpful and straight forward. Yay! Rich, one of the two aforementioned brave boys on this four-week adventure, also participated in the six-week experience and agreed to be interviewed about both programs. As he stated, “I wish I’d had these professors through my entire college career; they are awesome.” Hope to have that audio interview up on our website in a few weeks.