Time to Chill

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Today is our full day at the Chill Resort, and man was i excited to chill. I woke up around 7:15am and did my devotions outside on the balcony bed. My devotion time was really good today, I definitely needed some quality time with Jesus. Next I went down to the beach and face timed my Mom to wish her a happy birthday! It was still her birthday in American time, even though it wasn’t here birthday anymore in Thai time. The beach was calm and not many people were on it yet. For breakfast I had a mango smoothie, waffle with fruit and chocolate sauce, and a side of fried potatoes and bacon. Now that sounds like a lot, but their portion sizes are small, so I could eat it all! Around 9am we all boarded a speed boat and headed out to sea for some exploring! The wind was cool, which felt really nice since it was a warm day out. Honestly, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The fist place our boat stopped was a small island where we went snorkeling. I went snorkeling in 7th grade but it was at a tropical attraction place and not in an open ocean. So this was my first official snorkeling adventure in open water. I’m not going to lie, I was a little scared to get in the water. I just kept thinking about sharks and other sea creatures that could be lurking around. I eventually pushed myself and jumped into the water. Didn’t have much difficulty remembering how to breath, which is good. I saw a few different kinds of fish/creatures. The two most memorable were the sea urchins and a rainbow fish. The coral formations were beautiful too. After 45 minutes of snorkeling I started getting salt water in my eyes. My contacts dried up and my vision started getting blurry. I decided I had had enough snorkeling for the day, so i headed back to the boat. The second island we visited was my favorite! I could have stayed there all day long. The island has a beach, tons of broken coral pieces laying around, and big rocks breaking through the water. Some of the coral pieces where tied together in a wind chime formation, and were hanging from the trees. They clinked in the wind, creating this musical tone. Brielle, Mary and I decided we want to make wind chimes like that when we get back, so we went searching for the perfect pieces of coral. I ended up keeping 5 pieces of coral to make my chime with. After our searching we pretended we were models, and took some pictures on the rocks. Once I had gotten my fair share of pictures, I decided to go climbing on the rocks. There was one big rock in particular that I had been eyeing up since we arrived on the island. I made my way to the top of the rock with little difficulty. To my surprise the rock had some great natural hand holds. Soon Melissa and Brielle joined me on the rock. We sat up there and chatted for a bit, just taking in the view of the ocean. A bit later Debbie signaled for us to come back and get on the boat. I was the first to venture down the rock. I made it to the part of the rock where the water meets it, and side down on my butt. While I was sliding, a jagged piece of rock caught my foot and scrapped it open. I headed back to the boat in a little bit of pain. When I got on the boat and checked the bottom of my foot, my big toe and the middle portion were bleeding. Luckily I was on a boat full of nursing majors and nursing professors. One of the professors put some paste on my cuts, which made the bleeding stop. This paste looked just like the massage cream I had bought earlier in the trip, but it was less oily. The paste worked well, and my foot basically stopped bleeding! After this we went to two more islands. I got back in the water for a minute to cool myself off, and then laid out on the boat. I enjoyed watching all of the girls do flips and jumps off the front of the boat. Eventually we made our way back to the resort, and went out to lunch. We ate at some restaurant and they went to a cafe for gelato. Man I love icecream/gelato. We has free time for the rest of the afternoon, which was much needed. I spent my time lounging in a beach chair by the ocean. I read some of my book, which was written by my old professor and the pastor of Christ Community Church in Harrisburg PA. I also spent some time chatting with the girls and swimming in the pool. Eventually it was time to get ready for dinner, so I hurried back to the room and got a shower. That was when I noticed my blotchy sunburn on my knees and left arm. I guess I didn’t do as well of a job with the sunscreen on those parts. The dinner was a seafood buffet. There was so much food, I couldn’t eat it all! My seafood of choice was two crabs. Mary demonstrated for me how to open and eat a whole crab, since I’m used to just eating crab legs. I was about 1.5 crabs in when my hand slipped and a spike on the crab leg sliced my fingers open. At first I just noticed my pointer finger bleeding, and then Mary pointed out that my thumb was bleeding too. We both walked to the bathroom and Mary helped me get all cleaned up. I had to hold a paper towel on the cuts for at least 10 minutes to get my cuts to stop bleeding. So by the end of the night I had a scrapped up left foot and a scratched right hand. I was falling apart! My favorite food from the seafood dinner was the chocolate lava cake! What can I say, I love dessert. After the dinner we watched a fire twirling show. The performers were actually really good! I laughed at one point during the performance because I realized I could easily do all of the tricks they were doing with my baton when i was 13, but minus the flames. Melissa and I ended our night by watching an episode of Fuller House on Netflix.

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