On Monday, we packed up our snorkeling gear and spent the day at the beach across the street and to the left a little (near the Rarotongan hotel). We all explored the underwater world and it was amazing! We saw so many colorful and interesting looking fish! It was almost a spiritual experience being out there, surrounded by my boys, all breathing quietly, and slowly floating over this awesome world of fish! We saw bright blue sea stars, puffer fish, an eel, black and white stripe fish, bright blue fish, yellow fish, I could go on and on. It was surreal! We all took turns snorkeling together and loving the warm water. We could have been out there all day! Unfortunately, we had to head back in order to catch the bus into town for a few things.
There are two bus routes here, the clockwise bus and anti-clockwise bus. The buses only hit a bus stop once an hour so you have to time it just right or you'll be waiting a long time! We had to head into town to get a sim card so we could have internet access. We had been completely without internet access up until this point and it was really nice! But we needed to check in with family, friends, work, and church. So we got off at what we thought was the right bus stop, but we were wrong! So we had to walk quite a distance to find the internet place. Once we finally found it and purchased it, we had to find out where to go next. The District in Rarotonga was having a special Family Home Evening potuck dinner and we thought it would be really fun to attend. So we had to walk to find the church building. And we walked and walked. But the good thing about walking is that we got to see some neighborhoods off the main road and got to experience a bit of normal life for the people and we loved it! Once we finally found the church building, we were invited to take seats and wait. We sat right in front of a row of women with guitars and beautiful voices giving us a personal performance of their music. They were so talented! Once the meeting finally got started, the missionaries did a lesson, and then they were going to do an activity and then they were going to eat. But, we kept looking at the time and we needed to make it back to the bus stop to make it home! So unfortunately, we had to leave right after the lesson. We walked briskly to a hamburger shop still open and impatiently waited for our food hoping it would hurry so we would make our bus! We gobbled down our burgers as we walked and thankfully we had a few minutes to spare. The only bus running at night is the Clockwise bus so we had to take an extra long way back home. But the whole experience made for a un memory!
On Tuesday we wanted to explore Muri. We had been told that there was a delicious fresh fish place to eat at. So again we took the bus. Not knowing the island very well, we always have to guess which stop to take. The bus driver was helpful and dropped us off right where we needed to go. We ate yummy fish sandwiches! It was worth all the hype! We had planned on spending the day in Muri swimming and snorkeling but we weren't sure where to go. Luckily, we had timed the bus just perfectly and the bus picked us up and drove us a few stops where we got off again. We found a night paddle board place and made arrangements for later in the week to take their tour. The lady pointed us in the right direction for the best place nearby to snorkel….she claimed it was just a kilometer away. But, it wasn't….30+ minutes later we finally reached our destination! The kids were all troopers and we were again able to explore the neighborhoods closely =) The Fruits of Rarotonga was a nice place to snorkel, but it was a cloudy day and the water wasn't as clear. We all agreed that we liked the place near us better. After we were done playing we timed the bus just right and were able to get right on. As we were riding home it started pouring rain…we had left just in time!! We made it home to clean up, have dinner, and a nice relaxing evening home.
On Wednesday it rained and it rained hard!! We knew we
wouldn’t be venturing out today since the weather was so poor. But we took
advantage of being forced to stay indoors and relaxed and worked on a few
projects on the computer. Cody has been busy learning a new movie program and
is putting together a movie for Lagoon Breeze Villas to show our appreciation
for letting us stay here for free. I took the time to catch up on the loads of
blog posts that I was behind on. The kids enjoyed watching shows, reading, and
playing card games.
When the rain let up a bit, we played in the pool at the
resort. The kids could spend hours in the pool water…they prefer to play in the
pool than go to the beach! It’s been fun to see what great swimmers they’re
becoming, especially Trevor and Reese. Trevor is an awesome little snorkeler
and Reese is a little fish!
