island hopping

The weather forecast did not favor our plan to visit the ocean to swim with the fishes and look at varied corals.

It rained hard the day before. Many said there is a storm coming.

I packed my daughter's swimsuit with her raincoat. She woke me up and was ready.

My cousins and friend brought the chips and home made marinated dishes so we can have freshly grilled meal for lunch.

We bought fresh coconut from the street and put it in my water jug. We bought fresh oysters and sea urchins from local fishermen. She saw a green grasshopper in the bathroom before we started island hopping. We ride in the boat and jumped into the ocean where we saw fishes of varied colors and sizes. She held my hand and we swam together. She ate the food provided and ate all of them from sea urchins to oysters and grilled fishes, purple yam and sticky rice. I enjoyed my meal too but when doing outdoor activities, heat makes me eat less than normal.

We continued island hopping, swam with fishes and paddled a boat. Then on our last destination, I got curious. I wanted to go see island's nature sanctuary. We docked the boat and found a few mangroves. It was not what we expected but it was an exercise of curiosity and learning. As the full day of island hopping, snorkling, swimming and kayaking came to an end, I started to clean up the stuff and found my daughter's raincoat. On the 13th day of August on a Wednesday, she did not wear her rain coat. She wore goggles and life vest instead. She floated, swam and paddled a boat. Sun shone defying my own expectations of the day. There was no rain in sight. There were no videos or photos of me and my daughter under the water swimming among various fishes and looking at hard and soft corals in the ocean that day but my painful, hot and swollen arm with rashes from stings while swimming are more than enough evidence that love for nature is not just imagined.