Reef Walking

Here's a copy of an email my roommate sent to her friends back in the states about a little adventure we had. Enjoy-

It's 6 am and Jen (my roommate) and I just got back from reef walking. We found five humpbacks and two other little cowries. It was so much fun to take someone who's never been before. She's quite the adventurer and we had lots of fun. I looked at the tide chart and it showed a l0w tide at 3 am. I took her to the spot that we went to last time. I now know why it's important to wait for a negative tide. :) It was a rough intro to reef walking but I was able to teach her a lot of good techniques for bracing yourself when the big waves come and demonstrate some things you shouldn't do while reef walking. It was fun to spot a shell, point her in the right direction and then let her find it for herself. I spotted one shell and told her the area it was in and let her hop down in after it. I stayed up and watched the waves ( one of us usually played watchman and would yell when a big wave was coming so the other one could stand up and brace themselves) and she came up with a completely different shell than the one I'd seen. We scored two off that one! At one point I started getting nervous that I kept her up most of the night and then because the tide wasn't low enough that we'd go home skunked but thankfully that didn't happen! When we got down to the channel where we walk back up to the cars the waves were pretty rough so I decided we'd walk up on the opposite side than where we did when I was with you two. We got less than half way up when I realized that there was no trail and we really needed to go back out and cross over. I looked back at the waves and thought we might be in trouble. I didn't want to walk all the way back the other way so I told her we'd wait for the worst of the waves to go by and then we'd make a quick crossing. We were standing on a rock waiting for the worst to pass when all the sudden a wave swept her off and pushed her back. I felt terrible! Here I'd brought my roommate out (she's only been on island a few months) in the middle of the night and I was getting her all banged up on the rocks. Thankfully she was being pushed inland and not drug out. I yelled for her (like that really does any good) and tried to grab her unsuccessfully. She was able to get up and now has a few (very cool) battle scars along with her pretty shells to show for our adventure. Anyway, you'll be happy to know that we did make it across and home safely. She loved our adventure scraps and all. We're going again the beginning of Dec when there's actually a negative tide. I think she might be surprised how much easier it is when you're not getting banged around by waves.


Isn't this awesome? I had a blast...even through the cuts and scrapes. I am so glad I have an adventerous roommate who lives dangerously, but I mean, not that dangerously...but ok she does some crazy stuff. It goes perfectly with what I like to remember for myself..."do one new thing a day that challenges you" whether it be mentally, emotionally, or physically. The opportunities don't always arise but when they do, I have to go for them.