These are some of the stranger fruits from our backyard.  He who can first name all of them shall be named tropical fruit king (or queen).

ADVENTURE I: THE RING

While exploring Lao Lao Beach, I discovered a rock with a ladder attached to it that descended about 10 feet into the ocean below.  The water looked fairly deep, so I decided it would be a good place to take Janell swimming.  When I took Janell there, weeks later, the ladder was gone.  Instead, a rope hung down in its place.  I jumped into the water first to make sure it was safe, and more importantly, to find out how easy it would be to climb out.   Once in the water I discovered to my horror that the place I dove into was an under-water pit and was surrounded by sea urchins.  These urchins are the ones with long black spikes.  I also found that the movement of the tide was stronger than I thought as I had to thrash about to stay far away from anywhere I could touch bottom and get speared.  It was then that I decided that we should find a different place to swim.  As I swam toward the rope, my wedding ring slid off my finger and sunk down under the water.  I immediately dove down to try to catch it.  Just as I was about to reach it, another wave came in and washed it into a hole in some coral.  I dove down dozens of times to retrieve it, but could not get it out of the hole, especially with the waves pushing me back and forth.  Janell just laughed as I sputtered and thrashed against the tide in my futile attempts to retrieve my ring.  I finally gave up, with a vow that I would return.

Two days later, I returned with a box of tools and a professional spear-fisher (Brother Fajeron) from the ward.  As he waited on the cliff, I dove down with some pliers and for 20 minutes tried to retrieve the ring.  At that point I knew it was probably time to give up so I told Brother Fajeran that I would dive down just one more time.  After I failed that time, I told him again, “just one more time.”  After 5 more “one more times” I finally surfaced with the ring in hand.  Victory!!!

ADVENTURE II: TAPOCHAU

When we moved into the house, the owners told me that there is a trail to the mountain in the center of the island called Mount Tapochau.  My co-worker Bo and I set out to find the trail one Saturday afternoon.  with machete in hand, we stomped our way through the bush looking for a trail, but found nothing.  We hacked our way through branches and had to crawl through some places just to get by.  We continued to thrash through the jungles toward the mountain until we reached a break in the jungle.  There, we could see the tower at the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately between us and the top, there were masses of tall, thick grass.  Slashing through the jungle is one thing, but tall boonie grass is so much worse.  Machetes do literally nothing against these grasses.  Additionally you cannot see where you are walking or what kind of spiders are biting you or what kind of dead discarded body you are stomping on.  We searched for a trail through the grass, but we found none.  The top of the mountain did not look too far, so we decided to try stomping through it.  We found that through the first part, the grass was so thick that we could lift our feet to waist level and walk on top of much of the grass.  This made walking possible, but not particularly pleasant.  As we progressed, the grass just got worse.  Eventually the grass became too high to push over and stomp down, so we began shambling through it one step at a time.  By then our legs, arms, and hands were covered with cuts and scratches.  We finally made it to the top.  Tapochau has the most amazing view normally, but I think it was particularly stunning for us because we slashed our way through the jungle to get there instead of riding up in a jeep.  The picture is of me at the top of the mountain with my well worn machete on my shoulder.  We thought about waiting for some tourist to come by and beg for a ride back down, but decided against it.  Besides, who would give a ride in a remote location to two guys carrying machetes?  We ended up walking back to my house, pretty much the same way we came up.  By the time we got home we were covered with cuts and scratches and our cuts and scratches were covered with dirt and decaying plant matter.

First, we picked up some shells from Marine Beach on an evening beach picnic, and left them on the kitchen table.  In the middle of the night, we heard a scraping and scratching sound in the bathroom.  I went to investigate and found the largest shell we collected, scuttling around under the sink.  Lillia loved it, so we kept it for a week as a pet.  Eventually we had to let it go because it began to stink.

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but Janell is teaching a seminary class with 15 kids in it.  She is doing a great job and all the students really like her class.  She takes the scooter down the hill and across the island every morning at 6:00 AM.  Another member of the ward saw her on his way to work and commented on how tough Janell must be.  Janell says that taking the scooter is actually really fun.  The weather is so pleasant and the island is so beautiful that there is no better way to travel.  It is a real stress reliever for me as well.

Janell bought me a tortilla maker for my birthday, which is perfect because, I love tortillas, but they are so expensive here, and they are never fresh.  We have been making tortillas at least once a week since then.  Our favorite meal so far has been the fresh fish tacos we made.  We bought a fresh Mahi Mahi.  I Filleted it and Janell fried it and made the tortillas and our secret white sauce.  Best fish tacos ever.  It is similar to Rubios fish tacos, except that we used ultra fresh fish, so ours is better.

For my birthday dinner we went to the revolving restaurant.  The restaurant is on the top floor of the business center and has a great view.  What’s even better is that the dining area is constantly rotating to give you a different view of the island.  I had never thought a revolving restaurant would be in my price range, especially with a tropical ocean view, but the prices in this place were close to Olive Garden prices.  Thanks for visiting.

We celebrated Lillia’s Birthday at micro beach.  She has finally reached the terrible age of two.  And it’s about time, because she has been terrible for the last 6 months.  Actually Lillia is a sweetheart and is usually very happy.Although she began throwing violent tantrums since age one and a half, she compensates by giving lots of hugs and kisses and the worlds cutest smiles.  She cries when I leave every day and when I come home, she runs to me and says I miss you.I don’t care how cute your puppy is, it can’t do those things.

I like the picture of Lillia and me from behind.  Not only does it make our life here look like a tropical vacation, but it looks like I’m in a Corona commercial, except with a baby instead of a beer.

Janell and I are really enjoying ourselves here.Janell is making lots of new friends, including several other American women with babies and children.She goes to the beach with Lillia at least twice a week.  As for me, I’m really into coconuts right now.  You can just find them lying around and cut them open and eat them.I bought a machete, sharpened it up, and cut one open yesterday.  After extracting the juice and meat, I cut off the top and made a planter out of it to grow fresh cilantro (one of the things hard to find on the island)It made me feel so islandy.  Thanks for visiting.