Rain

It's really raining today. It's been coming down in sheets since this morning. As I logged in to post this, the lab ceiling began to drip a little. I'm afraid that my bungalow is going to be permanently damp from now on (the roof is holding up, but one wall is a bamboo curtain). The rainy season is supposed to start in December, so this may be a harbringer of what the next four or five months are going to be like.

For most of the past week it was hot and sunny, and yesterday I decided to go to the public beach at the mouth of 'Opunohu Bay, about a half-hour walk from where I live. This place had been highly recommended to me for snorkeling and yet I had never been there. It's a really nice little public beach, with hibiscus and coconut and Terminalia trees offering shade, and even a narrow strip of real, golden-white sand. Once I got in the water, the coral was indeed much better and the water much cleaner than just off the station; this is because the station is right in the path of all the urban and agricultural runoff from the town of Paopao and the 'Opunohu Valley. Before I realized it, the water had gotten quite deep, and I found myself hovering above an underwater cliff plunging into the lagoon channel, surrounded by schools of fish. But because the water was so clear, and it was a sunny day, I could see all the detail of the fish and coral heads ten or fifteen meters below, well enough to realize what I was missing. I have asthma, so I have never tried scuba diving, and I have never wished so much that I could dive!