"Tropical Paradise"

Hey everyone,

Sorry that it has been such a long time since I last posted on here. It has been a really crazy few weeks with school/ holidays/ weekend trips. Today I will update you on my most recent adventure to Ant atoll.

This past weekend I took a weekend trip to Ant atoll with one other volunteer and 8 menwai (white people in Pohnpeian). Some of them are lawyers here working for the government, some of them have been living here for 10 years, and some of them work with the US embassy. We traveled out to the atoll in a sketchy boat on Friday afternoon. the boat was too small for 10 people and it was too small to take us 10 miles away from Pohnpei. But...we made it!! After we arrived we set up camp on one of the islands islands comprising the atoll. Here is a picture of one of the view from our campsite.



After setting up camp some of the group went out snorkeling to check out the reef around the island. The reef was pretty awesome and it had a ton of fish. Two weeks ago I purchased a spear gun from one of the local carvers and I got to test it out for the second time this past weekend. The first time I went spear fishing I was unsuccessful. You have to hold your breath for 2 minutes to get the fish to come close to you. I guess I will give everyone a quick crash course on spear fishing. First...get your spear gun loaded up and ready to fire. Second..dive down to a piece of coral and hold onto it. Third...Hold your breath as long as you can. Fourth...pull the trigger to shoot the fish that hopefully swim directly in front of you. Fifth..retrieve the spear with the fish on it before you surface for air. Sixth...Bite the fish just behind the eye to crush its skull. (This preserves the meat for longer...if you dont bite the skull the meat spoils faster.)
I had my first successful spear fishing trip this weekend. Here's a picture of my catch. They were pretty small but they were very tasty.



Friday night was spent drinking rum and coconut (really awesome combo) and cooking my fish over the open fire. It was a really awesome start to the trip.

I spent Friday night sleeping on the beach. I thought that this would be a great idea. Some of the other spent the night in their tents..but that was lame. Me, Ira, and Amy spent the night on the beach. Fortunately it never rained so I was dry all night. However, I did not sleep well. Neither did Ira. We woke up all night and decided that it would be better if we just gout up off the beach around 5 am to stoke the fire and get ready for breakfast. We watched the sun rise and then realized why we had not slept all night. We were both covered in bug bites. Tons of them. I had hundreds. Ira had thousands. (This is not an exaggeration at all) So..we realized that we were being bitten by sand fleas all night. So I was itchy all weekend...and I still am now (Tuesday).
Even with the sand flea bites all over me I still was enjoying my stay at Ant. I spent the day hiking around the island and snorkeling. I will be getting a ton of pictures of the snorkeling but they were taken on Amy's underwater camera. I have to get the pics from here and I will show you what the water here looks like.
I swam with some sharks, sting rays, eagle rays, reef fish, and turtles on Saturday. I also tried some more spear fishing but I came up empty handed and out of breath. The next picture is a view of the water during the day.



On Saturday night we hung out next to the camp fire and enjoyed the sunset. The sunsets were amazing. Here are two pictures of the sunset Saturday night.






After the sunset we proceeded to build the biggest bonfire that I have ever built. We threw every piece of dry drift wood near our campfire, every palm fronds, and basically anything that would burn into the fire. We had flames that were about 20 feet tall. It was awesome. Fortunately there is so much rain here that it is virtually impossible to light the jungle on fire. Everything is wet all the time so fires are no worry.

I slept a little better Saturday night because I slept closer to the fire. This kept the sand fleas away. Ira and I woke up around 530 again and decided to go for an early morning snorkeling trip. The sharks usually feed at dawn and dusk so the best time to see them on the reef is early morning and late evening. I was the first one to jump into the water with my snorkeling gear on Right when my face went under water I had this strange feeling in my lips...like small needles stabbing me. Ira did not have the same problem so I figured that it was nothing. I ignored it and kept swimming out to the coral. Then I realized that something was in the water that I could not see. I still have no idea what it was but it was really painful. I had stings all over my body and a really nasty sting on my right arm. Here is a picture of what my arm looked like after the stings.



After the stinging subsided I tried to climb a coconut tree to get some coconuts for drinking with dinner. I was successful in getting 15 coconuts. But I also almost fell out of one of the trees. I did not fall out of the tree but I did get pretty scraped up on the way down. I have a few nasty infected scrapes now. No need to show you a picture of those.

The rest of Sunday was spent traveling back to Pohnpei on the small sketchy boat and tending to my wounds that I acquired over the weekend. I currently am tending to the hundreds of sand flea bites, my jellyfish stings, and my wound from slipping down a coconut tree.

Some people have said that I am really lucky to be able to go to these remote deserted islands, which I am, but going to these places is not as amazing as it sounds sometimes. The scenery is unbeatable, but the crazy critters, biting flies, jellyfish, and strange skin infections make it a little less appealing. Don't get me wrong...I had an awesome time this weekend. But... I think that some people see a very romanticized view of "tropical paradise". However, In my opinion, the trip was worth all of the sand flea bites, jellyfish stings, and skin infections.

I hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer/ beginning of fall. I look forward to hearing from all of you soon. Take care.


Tyler