Woke up this morning and 5 minutes later I was at the helm moving to another mooring buoy. Got to get them when you can! Anyway Mario and Lillian grabbed our lines making the tieoff a breeze! Then I hung up a little laundry. It is so pleasant drying clothes on the line. All the pretty colors blowing in a light breeze ! I see Halekai has their laundry out too.

Then I sat down for my cup of coffee and an almond cookie. Oh dear tomorrow they will all be gone! It will be a week before we get near a pastry shop again! The water here is crystal clear. A lot of fish are hiding under our boat. Doug threw out some bread crumbs and about 50 fish swam up! As I write a seagull is floating about 10 feet from me and catching his lunch.

Now to my main topic... tah tada!
I jumped in the dinghy tied to the back of Plankton and put on my gear which includes a floatie so I can just float along looking at the bottom. This floatie has very narrow tubes and a basket so I can double it over under my arms and swim. It's also handy for throwing in my fins and mask when fish, big and small in less thI am thru. It's best feature however is that I can sprawl on top of it and float over rocks a foot under my body. This becomes important when sea urchins are lingering there! How I digress! Anyway I had only snorkel end about fifty feet from the boat when a small jellyfish stung me. I returned to the boat while Doug went to the bathroom for the meat tenderizer. So I came out of the water and waited for it to do its magic.
Snorkeling adventure II
This time Doug dinghyed me to show and I flopped on my wonderful floatie in one foot of water and snorkel end away. Wow there were lots of fish in two feet of water. The bottom close in is rounded rocks with moss and short grass. Then sand and grass and rocks, big rocks with fish under them and big crevices with little schools of fish swimming thru right underneath me. Black Sea urchins cling to the rocks.
Have you ever eaten one? Yesterday Doug and Mario collected some and we had them for happy hour! The spines aren't sharp unless you step on them. Lillian cracked open about 30. You pick it up, squeeze a little lemon on top and dig it out with a spoon. They are delicious!
While snorkeling I went around a rocky point. The water deeper to 20 feet. The bottom was littered with rounded rocks that looked like a nest of dinosaur eggs! And about then another little jellyfish got me. I am a slow learner and he got me good, wrapping two tentacles around my arm just above the wrist! I yelped. Doug was around the point so I started finning fast as I felt the burn of the sting rise in my arm. Luckily my sweetie was already on his way to check on me! He dinghyed up, I climbed aboard and I think I have had enough of Jellyfish Hole for one day.
I am taking our friends to Doug's private white sand beach on the other side of the bay in a little while so I will report on that before I link this to Facebook.

Trip to Doug's private island. We took two dinghys across to Santa Maria island to this pretty little bay with a white sand bottom. It was shallow enough to stand up in parts and a pretty place to snorkel. The guys were totally entertained with locating sea urchins. I swam around looking at fish and a few jellyfish (ugh) that moved into the bay today. They were pretty too, pink and they would lie upside down on the bottom to filter feed. I was wearing fins so I was not worried about them or the urchins UNTIL I got stung again! I getting use to this. The sting goes away in a few minutes. After an hour or so we hopped in the dingys and headed back over to Jellyfish Hole to eat urchins. Lillian jumped out and plopped down in the sand at the waters edge and began rubbing sand on her legs, arms, neck, feet. Nancy and I thought this was a good idea so we all exfoliated. Lillian said its something island people do. She should know. My skin is smooth as silk tonight. Wow. I'll have to this again.
We ended the day with homemade pinacolatas on Plankton and an exchange of travel gifts (like travel books, cruising guides, sim cards) since we part tomorrow in different directions. It's been a fun meetup. Doug and I are going to hang on our mooring ball here for another 2-3 days. I' ll check in again if I can find anything to write about.
Meanwhile keep the cards and letters coming!

The picture is Jellyfish Hole taken from Plankton's prime mooring ball!
Barb :)