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Day 10: Snorkeling, Reefs and Day 2 Karaoke

We began the day at 9 after breakfast. After the usual logistics, we took the boat to a snorkeling spot. The water was incredibly clear and beautiful.

Unfortunately, due to a hangover from the previous night's drinking, I was feeling mildly nauseous and uncomfortable with the whole water and boating business.

Once we got to the snorkeling area, Adriane and Daniela did diving, while the rest of the crew did snorkeling.
I had my life vest on, and was excited to try out snorkeling. Once I jumped in the water, I knew I had made a mistake. I panicked, held my breath and was terribly scared of being in the open sea with nothing to hold on to. I have never been so terrified in my life. For some reason, my whole body refused to relax, even though I was not sinking, I could not breath. I flailed my arms around and screamed for help from those around. Andrea tried encouraging me to just relax, but I was in flight mode. One of the guides held me and motioned for the boat to come round and pick me.

Once I was back in the boat and tried to understand what had happened, I could not figure it out. This reinforced my fear of water, drowning and especially open seas. This was the most terrified I have been, probably second only to the other near-drowning experiencing that I had while at Starch when the swimming coach had the sense to require us all to jump from the deep end with no prior swimming experience.
The team came up for a break, after which we went to another snorkeling spot. I remained on the roof of the boat, enjoying the breeze, view and the solidity of a wooden boat. I thought to myself how much I would like to have the courage to get into the water, and how much it scared me that I had not learnt to swim at the ripe age of 28. I vowed to take up swimming classes and be a proficient swimmer by the end of 2018, my only resolution in the new year.

The Shack
We had the rest of the afternoon off, after lunch, and I took the time to catch up on sleep and nurse my hangover. I slept till dinner. After dinner, we did a review of the Bali leg of the trip, and discussed our learnings etc.


Afterwards, as promised we headed to The Shack to catch drinks. This time, the place was already crowded with people and the local band was already playing. The squad was much bigger this time: we lost Wardah and Jess from the previous night, but added Jackson, Adriane, Yitong, Renuka, Tom and Daniela Tizabi. We also had Jake, Zack, Andrea, and I from the previous night. Everyone was stoked to drink the palm wine. On the other hand, I dreaded drinking any of it because I was still nauseous from the previous night.



The team performing
I ordered Bintang and encouraged everyone to drink loads of the palm wine shit drink. Moments later, we were all up and dancing and singing along to the band. It was a whole lot of fun and we left the bar at midnight where we bade the guys at the bar goodbye. What a night!
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Location: Bunaken, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

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