Day 6: A moment you wish you could relive. (Galapagos!)

UPDATE: oh yeah. You probably can't see the pictures. Don't worry, I'll have it fixed.
Hoo-boy.

Why are weekends always so CRAAZY?
We kicked it off with a Friday Night Children's ministry summit at church. Atina went. I spent Saturday alternately folding clothes, chatting on The Lakehouse, and stressing over my recital. At the recital, I sorta forgot how to start my piece and spent quite a while trying to find the right notes. It was terrible. I had this conversation about it on The Lakehouse.

 Amaranthine : hey jedi chick

Amaranthine : i had my recital!

Amaranthine : I couldn't start my piece

Amaranthine : i kept playing the wrong notes

Jedi~Chick : Aww, other than that, did everything go ok?

Well, I personally didn't see how it could get any worse, but okay...yeah, it was fine. It was my mom's birthday, so we went to California Fish Grill for dinner. We got home at like, 11. The next day(today) we left the house at 7 AM to go to church. There is a new children's ministry director. Then we went to a party. Then we went to go shopping, and we didn't get home until six. 

Anyways.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The challenge thing. Right. 

Well, I don't really see how you could just relive a moment. Because it would be over really fast, don't you think? But if there was a part of my life I would want to relive, it would be our vacation to the Galapagos Islands a couple of years back. It was amazing.

It was on a little boat, with only 16 people. It would sail to a different island each night, for hiking or snorkeling or anything.

 And it sailed during the day sometime, so I would just sit on the deck chairs flying over the ocean, with the big frigatebirds only a couple feet above my head, soaring on the updraft from the boat. It was during the afternoon, and the sun was pretty on the water, and we could see the dark shapes of the different  islands and looking out for sea turtles and dolphins. 

Or sleeping at night on my bunk, listening to the sound of the ocean and the comforting rumble of the engines.

Or getting up super early, and standing on the deck surveying where we were anchored at our new location. Watching the glorious sun come up over the water, and the birds flying around. And no one else but us.

The water was clear, and there was always fish in the water that we could see. One time there were sharks that we got to feed.

And the very first time we went snorkeling, with sea lions and reef and fish and turtles and eels.

And all the passengers gathering in the dining room going over the highlights of the day. To tell you the truth, the hiking was my least favorite part. It was still cool to walk right up to the fearless animals. No animals ran away from you. They just sat there. They weren't used to humans scaring them off(you aren't allowed to.)

Here are some pictures. 

 

Nothing in the Galapagos is afraid of people. You don't have to sneak up on animals to get good shots.

The early morning beauty I was talking about.

 Lots and lots of marine iguanas. We were this close to them. They don't care. They just stared at us and yawned. "Oh, more tourists?"

http://web.linglink.com/2008/2008-02_Galapagos/2008-02-29_James_Bartolome/MOV00505.MPG

A video. Galapagos penguins. You can snorkel with them. They are curious. They swim right up to you and peck at your gear!

When we woke up one morning, there were sharks in the water. The cook let us feed them with fish scraps. My dad put his underwater camera on a pole and took some pictures.

 

ooh, colorful iguana.

Okay, I definitely need to do a separate post on this. The trip was a week long. And there are a ton of video clips and pictures of sharks and penguins and things. More later!

Oh, these pictures are my dad's by the way. Also he narrated the penguin video.

Amaranthine