El NIdo

We have arrived at our third stop on our trip, and it's stupendous.

Since my last posting, we dove a day with Adonai (Raphael was sick and apparently Daniella doesn't dive), and we were able to dive the Baraccuda Lake again plus two great wrecks. One one dive we saw a whole bunch of fun stuff...but nothing too new. We enjoyed the day, though. Part of why we enjoyed it was because our dive instructor was super hot. Even I enjoyed watching her.

One fun part of the day was when we were 28 meters down, and we had only been down for 20 or so minutes, and I checked out Adonai's air, and he had 30 bar left. I was sucking through air (remember - wreck diving? I really get nervous and don't like it), and Matt had something like 100 or 120 (you start with 200, and 50 is when you come up, and when you're 28 meters down you still have to do a few safety stops on the way up...). I was freaking, but he was calm. As usual. He buddied air. That means he sucked air from the hot dive instructor. I don't think he minded.

The day after we headed on the Jessabel to El Nido. We had heard it would be a terrible ride - anywhere from 8 to 15 hours. Huge waves. Splashing getting us wet. Horrible. "I would never take the boat to El Nido." We even waited a full day to take the bigger boat (the 50 person rather than the 20 person). We got there in less than seven hours, and it was the easisest thing ever. Only a three year old barfing in the middle and no other challenges at all. Okay, when we were docking the arm of the boat crashed into the dock, and it broke, but I didn't care, because we were already there. I'm just glad we weren't taking it the next day...

Rose found us at the port - the last ones getting our bags off the ferry...hobbling along, taking pictures, slower than everyone else, "is one of you named Matt?" YES! We made our way to the Golden Monkey Cottages where there are nine monkeys (and a few cottages). It's been great. It's a walk through fields, animals, kids, and BEAUTIFUL beaches and views to get to the cottages, which are right on the beach. Adonai made friends with the monkeys (as he has with EVERY animal whom we have met - and he speaks to them ALL in Spanish, clearly).

The last two days we have spend with Bitong, our boat man, and his grandson (we think), Saldy, out on the water. We have visited tons of lagoons, beaches, snorkel sites, and this is honestly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. White sand beaches, BLUE BLUE and sometimes even green water, with dramatic limestone cliffs. Krabi doesn't compare. Honestly. It's sooo beautiful. I am extremely tan, which is bad for my skin cancer changes, but it's kind of hard to avoid out here.

Tomorrow morning we say bye to Adonai (and the monkeys), as he heads back to Spain to later see me in Philly, and we're heading down to Puerto Princessa and then to Manilla the next day only to fly back to Singapore...