July 15

This morning we woke up at 5am!  Today was our surprise day!  None of us other than Tyler & Jenny knew what we were doing.  All we were told was to wear our bathing suit and wake up at 5.

We all loaded up into the bus and began our drive.  It took about 2 hours to get to our destination and Jenny and Ty kept the secret until we got there!! We all tried to guess what we thought it would be and failed miserably!  Jaylyn had a pretty creative guess…A concert on a boat!  

When we finally arrived at our destination, Jenny said "Ok are you ready to know??" We yelled "YES!!"

Her response…"SNORKELING!!!"  

Are you kidding me??!!!  I was stoked!!  Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean and seeing more of God's amazing creation..YES PLEASE!! 

We got all signed in and headed to the boat.  Before we got on the boat some of us decided to jump off the pier into the water, a 10ft drop!  (I was not one of them:)

But it was fun to take pics of all the crazies in our group:) (love you guys!)

We then loaded on the boat and headed out to the Corral Gardens.  As soon as we got a little farther we were offered Chai and Mondazzi's (still haven't figured out the correct spelling), which were delicious!

We then got to sit back and enjoy an amazing view, and feeling the slight mist of the ocean as we rode on.

I feel like it took a good hour to get to where we needed to be, but we finally arrived.  We were handed our gear and I tried to figure out how to put it on, I've never been so this was all new to me.  

We then jumped off the side of the boat and began our snorkeling experience!!  

It took me a good 20min to get used to sticking my head in the water and breathing, I was hyper ventilating at first, but I finally got the hang of it…for the most part.

It was an amazing experience.  The Corral was beautiful, the fish were so colorful, and the water was so clear!  This Texas girl is used to the gross waters of the gulf, the water itself was a sight to see! 

I swallowed a lot of sea water, and my goggles kept filling up but I tried to enjoy it!

After a while the boat came around to us and we all got in.  We went a little further to a strip of beach that was in the middle of the ocean.  The boat let out the anchor and we ran to the shore to chill and hang out.  

The sand was so white!  It had specks of orange in it, I still don't have any idea what that was but it looked cool!  The sand itself felt so different from the dirty gulf.  We laid down soaking in the sun of the equator and relaxing.  Austin found a sea snail in a beautiful shell that looked fake it was so shiny and perfect!  It still had the snail inside it and it was heavy!  He had to leave it because the waters are government owned and you can't keep anything.  Elyse and Whitney found some pretty cool stuff too.

After a little bit the tide started to come in.  The gulf tide seems to take a while to come in, but not in Africa!  It started to come in and within 10min the strip of land was no more!  We walked out to the boat and even with water up to my chest I could still see my feet!  It was awesome!

We all got in the boat and then headed to lunch.  

We pulled up to a restaurant on the side of a cliff!  We walked up the shelled stairs into an outdoor paradise.  Our team had a table on the edge of the cliff and all of us faced the ocean, it was an amazing view with an amazing meal.  We started with a whole crab (soooooo good!!), then a seaweed wrap (I really like it), then a Fish and Coconut flavored rice dish, followed by a dessert of the local fruits, mango (I of course couldn't eat it since I am allergic to them), Passion Fruit (really weird texture but very good!), bananas (LOVE African bananas!).  It was the perfect meal for a perfect day.  The only thing that would have made the day any better would have been if Chris had been there.

We then headed home, got on the bus and drove to our hotel.  The hotel is a quaint little place going through "renovations", I loved it!  The walls were paper thin so you could hear the sounds of all the Kenyan's on the street, radios blasting, even a pastor…we think!  But I was so happy and worn out from the day I didn't even notice!  Allison and I stayed awake for a while talking, I talked more than her…surprise surprise!! Lol!  It was good though!  I love the times I've had with these girls to get to know them.  

We went to sleep to the lullaby of Kenya outside our window…these memories will last forever!