Today, we just stayed at our resort and relaxed, since the hospitals wouldn't be open to us on the weekends, and it also was raining, so we decided not to explore the city yet. We started off the day going on a boat to go snorkeling. The boat was just off the coast, but now it was low tide, and in low tide, the water was shallow enough so that we could walk very far off and board, and there was a ton of seaweed that we had to walk through.
We boarded and then cruised out to a sandbar just off the coast, and then jumped off. There was a small coral reef for us to explore, and though the water wasn't very clear, what I love about the ocean is that even in a small area where you can't see much, you still end up seeing a lot! Especially in a coral reef. I saw some incredibly large grouper fish, parrotfish, trumpetfish, stone fish (they can kill you with their stingers!), a starfish, a moray eel, an alligator fish, and many tiny zebrafish that swarmed around our boat! The captain brought out pieces of bread for us to feed the fish, they crumpled them into balls and then handed them to us. The fish absolutely swarmed my hand as I held it, and I felt them nibbling away at it, it tickled a bit! Sadly I don't have pictures of snorkeling, but trust me, we saw all of those things! Would I lie? I would not!
After snorkeling, we pulled up to the sandbar, which, during low tide, many many little tidal pools, which often had small creatures stuck inside for us to see. On the way there, we came across another starfish, a very spiky red one, and we felt its suction on our hands as we held it. We saw a lot more once we set foot on the land, we saw small yellow sea sponges, sea slugs, sea urchins, some that were ok to hold, and some that were large and threatening because of how big their spikes were! We also saw many "sea spiders", which were like a combination of a starfish and an octopus, they crawled around a lot and had very spiky tentacles. There was also a "tiger shell", a mollusk inside of a very big (and smooth!) shell that had a tiger-like pattern on it.
The walk was nice, but the tide was coming it, so we had to re-board the boat fast and return to the mainland.
After that, we had a nice lunch, the seafood was excellent, which is to be expected in a coastal city!
After that, we spent time around the resort, we swam in the pool, went for walks on the beach, swam in the ocean, and even met some fun guys who had an inflatable slide on the water that we played on for a while.
It was a wonderful afternoon. We felt thoroughly refreshed and relaxed, and now ready to continue on with our research tomorrow!