Adventure!

I'm not exactly sure where to begin this next tale so I guess I have to start from the most logical point: leaving the internet cafe yesterday. On my way back to where I am currently staying, a lovely place called Georgina's cottage, I walked with a toothless man for about half a mile talking a mixture of French and English. Between the two of us, we had a rather interesting conversation going.

By the time I got back to the dive shop where I was meeting Allie, it was 5 pm and the beers were already out. We sat outside the shop and drank for a little while with some local Seychellois and some other rift-raft (used lovingly, not seriously). We just generally had a good time and enjoyed talking about Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard (which Allie and Ronnie had both lived in for a bit of time). Ronnie even knew what Remus (the AUV my dad works on) was, which was nice and made me feel at home.

After a little while Vanessa, one of the local Seychellois girls had to go so Reggae drove her and everyone else who had been drinking on a field trip. After we dropped her off we stopped at Reggae's friend Hikol's house. Hikol, is a German architecture who has the most amazing house pretty much ever. He has started a Giant Tortoise sanctuary and has 4 juveniles and one baby. He gets them from people who think it would be fun to have them, but can't actually pay to properly take care of them. He also had a rescued dog named Floyd and two cats, one named Maw and the other (a very young kitten) named Meow. Needless to say, I was in love with all the animals.

I was then introduced to a "coconut chair" which is a stole that has a weird sort of blade on it. While you sit you rub the coconut round and round and it gets shredded. We did this because we were making coconut chicken curry.

Hikol's house was on the water and was absolutely stunning. He'd designed it all himself and had a lot of tiled mosaics for flooring. He also had raised sinks. (awesome). He was also only maybe 30. I guess he is one of the few people on Seychelles who actively keeps a garden... it was pretty impressive too. All in all, Allie and I were super impressed with the house and the meal; outstanding!

Today, I woke up and went on two dives again -- both in Bay Ternay. My dive buddy, Ronny, is a super friendly down-to-earth Seychellois guy who knows whats what except he was really adamant about having me touch fish and sea life. It sounds cool but I'm really not into disturbing animals and its hard to communicate not wanting to do something underwater. In the end I held some shrimp, touched a giant marbleheaded ray and a sea turtle.

I'm up to 5 dives on the trip so far, 9 in total.
Tonight, I am laying low and doing some creative writing. (gasp!) Actually, I've been doing a lot of brainstorming in my down time so that the next time I get Good Old Red I can write write write write!

Sweet deal