The Boonie Stomp

The person with the red backpack is my friend.

By the time we came back through, the tide had gone out and we were walking on land.

They say the rock over my right shoulder looks like a whale blowing water out its blowhole.

Cool algae growing on rocks.

Can you see the tiny crabs in their shells?

There is a group out here called the Boonie Stompers.  They go hiking every Saturday morning.  I went with a fellow JAG to see what it was like.  It was fun, but took forever.  We ended up leaving early.  The Boonie Stompers are in no rush to do anything.  But it was pretty.

More snorkeling

Those yellow ridges looked a little like waffle cones.  I wanted to go get ice cream.

The creepy fish keep following me!

More coral.  It's difficult to pick out the fish that were there.  The pictures usually just look like a bunch of coral, but I promise there were fish!

Coral arch

Can you find the fish?

Scuba divers going further out to sea.

This dude kept trying to keep his flip flops on.  He was going really slow and it was frustrating because I wasn't feeling well and just wanted to get back to shore.  He should have taken his flip flops off and swam.

Snorkeling with Friends

Beach where we went snorkeling.  The first place we went was closed, so this was second choice.  It rained briefly before we went in.  You can't tell by the sunny skies, but it's rainy and sunny all the time.

The blue flippers are mine.

In order to get past the sharp coral, you have to follow these pipes.  I think they are fiber optic cables, but I don't remember.

This is where it gets deep enough to leave the pipeline and start snorkeling.  The pipes were cool.

My friends dove a lot.  They are both scuba divers.  I'm not.  I'm sure I'll go eventually, but I don't think it will be my thing.

She picked up a starfish.

The water was a little murky, so most of the pictures I took turned out a little... eh.  But this is nice of the coral.

This area had deep caverns filled with sand.  I don't know how they were formed, but the coral was around and then the caverns just went down.  Not too far, you could dive to the bottom.

As my friends proved.  They dove down.

Fish highway!

She is pointing to a long, skinny fish.  I couldn't really see it, so I took a picture.  So for my loyal blog viewers- go find the fish!

These random fish were always following you for some reason. You'd turn around and there they were.  They would scatter in front of you and then follow behind.

I went snorkeling with some friends from work.  I should do it more often.  But they like scuba diving more.  So, I'm left to snorkel when I can.  We went around the first week of October or so.  We went to "the Beach Bar" which, aptly named, is a bar on the beach.  They have a large parking lot and lots of people go there to snorkel and dive.  I didn't eat a good breakfast, so I got a little sea sick.  The water was a little rough, hence the lack of visibility.

Halloween Part 2

This is Halloween part 3.  Part 2 was the church trunk or treat, but I don't have pictures.  I did the same thing as the command trunk or treat.  All the stars had science questions on them.  (The stars hanging had famous scientists on them.)  I asked them to the kids.  It. Was.  Awesome.  There the kids are, running around like crazy trying to get as much candy as possible and suddenly I say "Hey kids!  You want some Halloween candy?"  "Yes!" they exclaim.  "Good, answer a science question and you can have the candy!"  Then crickets.  They just stare at you not knowing what to say.  Some kids were really into it.  Especially age 8 and up.  The really small ones just wanted to play with the star.  But the slightly older kids kept asking the questions to each other.  Once they figured out I was serious, they took it seriously and tried to answer the question.  There was a fourteen year old at church whose parents are raising him right.  He said "you have the best trunk or treat because everyone is just giving the candy away, but you are making them work for it.  People shouldn't get something for free."  I thought that was funny.  That kid is going places.  These pictures are from our command Halloween party.  It went really well considering we had a budget of $200.00. We did run out of food, but it was still a cool thing.

I should mention the stars all had Nerds candy taped to them.  So I gave them all science Nerds.  Haha, it's funny, get it?  The answer was on the back.