Maldives day 2 Monday.
I slept really well and woke up, showered in the open air shower and went to breakfast. The restaurant is over the water with wood floors and wood beams. Breakfast was served buffet style with the food set on boats. It is a French place so bread and fruit were abundant. Disappointed there was no cheese though! I had yummy passion fruit jam on bread and a lot of fresh and dried fruit. I havent had dates and figs since I was in Israel. They also had glasses with pineapple and papaya diced into it and yogurt nearby that you could put on it. It is what I normally have for breakfast so I was happy.
I decided to try snorkeling for the first time. Many people at school are scuba divers. I have no interest in that but thought I could try snorkeling. A very brown Frenchman fitted me for a mask and flippers then showed me how to snorkel. Once I got the hang of it I joined the morning trip. We took a five min boat ride to a coral reef. And it was really cool! Most of you have no idea what a huge accomplishment this was. I had a near drowning experience when I was 7 and haven't been they fond of water. I can swim now and do in pools occasionally but not a fan of natural water swimming. When I worked at a Girl Scout camp in my 20s I put a life jacket on just to hang out with the other staff in the deep end. To jump off a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean was a very big deal!! The guy tried to calm me by saying we were in "shallow water" 50 to 70 meters!, not shallow! It was neat to see the ocean turn from deep blue to teal. Two other people were new to snorkeling and the woman only lasted about half the time. I started to feel really nauseated even thought I took Dramamine before we went. I was trying to figure out how I was going to balance myself in the water while vomiting :) I got in the boat but it turns out they pulled everyone else in after 5 min so I almost made it the whole hour! I came back and took a nap to help the nausea go away. When I woke up I realized my back was burned. I had painstakingly put on 30 SPF and was only out an hour. Bad thing about going alone my suit had a keyhole back and I couldn't reach all the exposed skin I eventually used my toothbrush holder to spread it around. Turns out all my back got burned whether I missed the spot or not. Friends had warned me about snorkeling and my fair, red headed friend told of how he got huge blisters on his back. Ow! I will invest in a swim shirt if I go to more be beachy places. I am fortunate I don't have the extreme photo sensitivity that other lupus patients have but I still have less tolerance than I used to. The rest of me is getting nice and brown while I read outside even with sunscreen.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they serve dinner on the beach. It was really nice and they had a lovely dessert bar. A older French woman and one off the staffers and I ate together. The staff woman is Mauritian and recently went to India so we talked about that. I heard her ask the French woman if the spoke English and she said that she did speak some but refused to do so!! The other woman and I talked about a lot of things and occasionally she would try to tell the French woman about it and it seemed like she understood but wouldn't participate. I travel alone a lot and usually have no problems meeting people but it has been tough here.
After dinner they started showing " up in the air" at 10:30. I lasted about 20 minutes!, the sun makes me sooo tired!
I slept really well and woke up, showered in the open air shower and went to breakfast. The restaurant is over the water with wood floors and wood beams. Breakfast was served buffet style with the food set on boats. It is a French place so bread and fruit were abundant. Disappointed there was no cheese though! I had yummy passion fruit jam on bread and a lot of fresh and dried fruit. I havent had dates and figs since I was in Israel. They also had glasses with pineapple and papaya diced into it and yogurt nearby that you could put on it. It is what I normally have for breakfast so I was happy.
I decided to try snorkeling for the first time. Many people at school are scuba divers. I have no interest in that but thought I could try snorkeling. A very brown Frenchman fitted me for a mask and flippers then showed me how to snorkel. Once I got the hang of it I joined the morning trip. We took a five min boat ride to a coral reef. And it was really cool! Most of you have no idea what a huge accomplishment this was. I had a near drowning experience when I was 7 and haven't been they fond of water. I can swim now and do in pools occasionally but not a fan of natural water swimming. When I worked at a Girl Scout camp in my 20s I put a life jacket on just to hang out with the other staff in the deep end. To jump off a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean was a very big deal!! The guy tried to calm me by saying we were in "shallow water" 50 to 70 meters!, not shallow! It was neat to see the ocean turn from deep blue to teal. Two other people were new to snorkeling and the woman only lasted about half the time. I started to feel really nauseated even thought I took Dramamine before we went. I was trying to figure out how I was going to balance myself in the water while vomiting :) I got in the boat but it turns out they pulled everyone else in after 5 min so I almost made it the whole hour! I came back and took a nap to help the nausea go away. When I woke up I realized my back was burned. I had painstakingly put on 30 SPF and was only out an hour. Bad thing about going alone my suit had a keyhole back and I couldn't reach all the exposed skin I eventually used my toothbrush holder to spread it around. Turns out all my back got burned whether I missed the spot or not. Friends had warned me about snorkeling and my fair, red headed friend told of how he got huge blisters on his back. Ow! I will invest in a swim shirt if I go to more be beachy places. I am fortunate I don't have the extreme photo sensitivity that other lupus patients have but I still have less tolerance than I used to. The rest of me is getting nice and brown while I read outside even with sunscreen.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they serve dinner on the beach. It was really nice and they had a lovely dessert bar. A older French woman and one off the staffers and I ate together. The staff woman is Mauritian and recently went to India so we talked about that. I heard her ask the French woman if the spoke English and she said that she did speak some but refused to do so!! The other woman and I talked about a lot of things and occasionally she would try to tell the French woman about it and it seemed like she understood but wouldn't participate. I travel alone a lot and usually have no problems meeting people but it has been tough here.
After dinner they started showing " up in the air" at 10:30. I lasted about 20 minutes!, the sun makes me sooo tired!
No comments:
Post a Comment