Day 12: Kayaking, Fresh Fish, Rainbows, and Sea Turtles!

Did I mention Entalula leaves coffee, on a table outside my door, every morning?!   I feel like I'm back in Boracay with this kind of service! :)

 I found an internet cafe that uses a generator, so they are open before the rest of the town has electricity!  So, I added some pictures to yesterday's blog before getting my day started!

As I was leaving the internet cafe, I saw this old Philippino man outside his rice packaging store and asked to take his picture!  His friends were clapping when I showed them the photo I took, so I took a picture of them too!  It's so funny here... because when you take someone's picture, they always thank you profusely!  I don't know why... but I think it's cute!

He was smiling and laughing, but as soon as I held the camera up, he made this somber face...  I wish you could have seen his "1 tooth smile!"  It was awesome!

Such a sweet woman...

I ate breakfast at Ric Son's this morning... Philippino pancakes!  mmm...

They have cool art like this hanging all over their walls...

Around 9:30am, Junie and I swam out to Ali's boat!  It was much further out than it looked from the shore, and it took us both about 25 minutes to get there (with nowhere to rest along the way)!  I kept looking up from the water and feeling like I wasn't getting any closer!!  Not a good feeling when you're swimming in the ocean!

As I was swimming, I spotted something that, at first, looked like a gigantic coral in the sand... then as I got right above it, I saw it's 4 big legs paddling up towards the surface of the water!

 IT WAS A HUGE SEA TURTLE!

I'd even go as far as to say, I swam with it! ***
And the best part was... It was, NO JOKE, as big as me!  INCREDIBLE!

Mike and Janice came to the boat shortly after with fresh fish and pork from the local market that comes to town on Wednesdays and Saturdays!  As it turns out, Mike is quite the chef!  We feasted on White Snapper, grilled pork, cucumber in vinagirette, fried veggetables, and of course, white rice, a staple in the Philippines!

We all agreed, we were living the life today!

After lunch, I borrowed Ali's kayak and headed towards the corals, which were about 300 feet away from the boat to do some snorkeling.  When I got there and looked at how far I was from them, or any other boat for that matter, I had to have a little pep talk with myself to jump in the water!  It's really scary to jump into really deep ocean water with no one around!  But they assured me there weren't any sharks, and that I would be okay, so I made the big plunge!  It was worth it!

Noa woke up really late today, so Janice and Mike kayaked to the shore to pick her up around 3pm to bring her to the boat!  Gotta love the water taxi service around here!

It didn't rain today, but God gave us a gorgeous FULL and vibrant rainbow to enjoy while we swam and ate our dinner on the back of the boat!  This picture just doesn't do it justice at all!

Mike, Janice, Me, Junie, Noa, and Ali!  I feel so blessed to have met these 5 very different and wonderful people in El Nido!  We have a lot of fun together, just the 6 of us, and have really gotten to know each other over the short time we've had!  I wouldn't trade the last 3 days with them for all the tea in China!

The 6 of us all layed on the nets in the front of the yacht and watched the sunset over Cadlao island while Janice played guitar for us!

Now this is what I call a VACATION!

Tomorrow I'm headed to do some island hopping with 3 people I've met in different places around town!  I've heard it's awesome, so I'm crossing my fingers that the weather is nice like it was today! It will be my last official day of vacation before I make the trek back to Manilla to fly home to Korea.  So, cross your fingers for blue skies, k?!**

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