living with intention

I saw reef-squid underwater for the first time today! In my 12 years of diving so far, I have never seen them before, but have always heard how fun they were. I had a good 45 minutes with four of them this afternoon, watching them swim both backwards and forwards, flashing from a dark brown, to an almost translucent white. Their piercing big blue eyes never seemed to leave me. They were incredibly curious, however, wouldn’t let me get too close. The waves were crashing overhead and jolting me all about due to the 30-knot wind that has accompanied the blustery, rainy weather we’ve had for the past few days. Unfortunately this has meant that we haven’t been able to get out to see the whales. We went out on the boat this morning all ready to go whale watching, and as we were driving over to the sailboat our guest was on, the rains picked back up, fog rolled in, and the waves were too big, so the decision was made to scrap the trip.

We haven’t had any guests here the past few days as well, so it has been incredibly relaxing. I finished my second book of the summer (nothing to write home about… a beach read), and am starting on my next book. Patelo, a local Tongan man who works here as well, taught me how to get coconut cream. It’s a much more extensive process than you would imagine. You start by finding the coconuts, breaking off the outer layer, opening up the nut with a huge machete-like knife, scraping out the coconut flesh, and finally squeezing the cream. It was very cool. Patelo was a fantastic teacher too – he was incredibly patient as it took me many attempts to do each step.

I don’t think the weather is supposed to clear up for another couple more days, but my fingers, toes, and every other appendage is crossed in hopes that this crummy weather and high winds push past.