Best Labor Day EVER!

So the weekend started off good with the best Saturday morning entertainment I have ever had. That morning I went out to the cargo pier and was just sitting with my feet over the edge when I saw a huge turtle right at my feet, then I looked up and saw a big pod of dolphins jumping off in the distance. I was able to sit there for a while before I left to go eat the delicious food at the never ending buffet.

There are so many different shades of blue here, I can't stop staring at the water!

Later that day we went on a mini expedition to explore some of the island.

We ended the expedition by going over to the finger pier and taking a tour of the tug boat. To bring out all the construction stuff for the new runway a 240 ft barge is docked here for about a month. The captain of the tug boat gave us a first class tour and even gave us drumsticks at the end!

Checking out the engine room, one engine was 1000 horsepower and the other was 300 HP!

Sitting in the captain chair

That night we had a labor day bbq. The party was complete with a little ping pong, shuffle board, foosball, and pool

Some of the thai are pretty professional when it comes to ping pong

This is the stage where the band plays. They have a really good band, but they only know about 12 songs.
The full moon was that night and it was the brightest I've ever seen. This is my sweet bike named "The White Tern"

Monday morning was very exciting. First with a huge breakfast and then we went snorkeling at the cargo pier. Before snorkeling around we had to just jump into that crystal clear water!

Me and Pong (the chef) before jumping off

This is how they treat the women out here

From left to right: Kittypong, Me, Pong

Ok sot the coolest moment happened when we made it about half way down the pier...we just happened to run into a monk seal!! It swam right up to us the first time and was about 3 feet from Kittypong. It was eating a fish and made a funky face and then swam away. We finished swimming out to the end of the pier and saw HUGE ulua and a couple sea turtles. Then we started heading back. We made it about half way again when Darlene told me to come look at a huge parrot fish. So I swam back and when I looked around the concrete pillar up popped a seal face. It was only a couple feet away and kind of startled us at first. I tried to turn on my camera as fast as possible, but only caught the tail end of the seal. The lighting is bad under the pier so the video is not clear at all, but I will never forget my swim with the endangered monk seal!

After the snorkeling trip we finished the afternoon off with a good game of Settlers

The last hours of sunlight were BEAUTIFUL, the sky just stretches forever out here!

The barge guys went fishing on Sunday. They had to travel about 5 hours to get outside the refuge, but caught some huge ahi, one of them was about 180 pounder. Well on Monday night they cooked up a bunch of different recipies and had a bbq on the pier. I don't like fish, but that was some really really good food! If all fish tasted like that I would eat it all the time!

Well it was a busy weekend and I am sad to see it end, but I do love the work I do out here so it is a win win situation!