I brought along lots of eye drops and vinegar and olive oil and wash my eyes with the drops and rinse out my ears with the vinegar/olive oil each time out of the sea. So far it has worked - eyes feel fine and no ear infections.

I started getting a very painful friction blister on the top of my right foot from a week of using my 36 inch longfree diving fins for hours a day. I realized that the goop (j-lube) I use to make it easier to put on my neoprene spearfishing top and bottom might help with my painful foot. I tried it yesterday placing the j-lube inside my diving sock before I put the fins on, and it worked wonders - pain gone. I just have to have a small vial of it with me and apply the j-lube right before enterng the sea, so I don’t slip when walking down the steep cement stairs from my cottage. (fixing one problem but creating another).

These long fins are a wonder, and it only takes easy kicking to really get yourself moving through the sea. They are flexible and so do a hard curve with each kick. They are still not enough to swim against a fast moving current, but help more than any other fins would. I switched to a shorter pair as an experiment a couple of years ago in a swimming pool and could not stand them - it felt like I was in slow motion. I am careful to not touch the coral with my fins, which is easy to avoid when the tide is high or when swimming just beyond the reef at low tide. If I do get too close I stop moving my feet and just use my arms to paddle into more open water.

We are startig to get very low and very high full moon tides the next few days. (+ and - 8 feet) .Sea level goes below the hard corals and if you are beyond the reef when that happens you are stuck. Fortunately on this side of the island there is a channel that the boats use to go through the reef at these maximum low tides, and which I also have used in the past to go out and back in the reef. It is important to have my yellow buoy then so I can be seen while swimming througnh the channel, (which I always do).

I love the experience when the dive boat picks me up and I grab on to the loops on the side of the boat and hand up my cameras and buoy, then remove my dive fins and hand them up. I brought along a lot of rupiahs and plan to leave large tips for the owner and each of the staff because I am so grateful for how well they look after me. The meals are absolutely delicious and the cooks and I have a simple banter between english and bahasa. ‘Baik, baik’ I say (good, good), and they say thank you in English. Sometimes I am surprised when I come up with a bahasa word I didn’t know I had learned. I said ‘sarapan’ one morning to the cook (breakfast), and she replied ‘yes, sarapan pagi (morning breakfast). I think they like that I have made an attempt to learn some bahasa, although I am far from fluent - know words, not conversations. But I do enjoy saying pagiii to people I come across at the beginning of day. (morning). They reply ‘pagiiii.’ I often say terimi kasih, (thank you) and they say sama sama (welcome). I can mention my anjings and ayams when I share photos from my tablet. (dogs and chickens). And when parting I say sampai jupa lagi (see you later).

Willeke again told me her and her husband (Jerry) do not like it when I go to the other side of the island to snorkel alone. She said she is afraid I will get caught in a current and they won’t know where I am. I admitted that was a valid concern. I am fine going out with the dive boat where they can monitor my yellow buoy and be safer.

There have been others here at the Happy Gecko this entire trip, and I have met some very friendly people. Right now there is a dutch family with three children who also go out on the dive boat. The mother, father, and older sun always dive. The youngest boy (about 10) and her teenage sister snorkel while their parents are in the blue. I am always the first in the sea and yesterday I found some orange and white clownfish over an anemone in very clear sea water. After photographing them I swam and found the two young people and asked them if they wanted to see the orange and white fish (Nemo). They followed me and I had memorized the coral formations so took them right to the clownfish. Both were very happy to have found Nemo, which is always special for me as well. The most unique clownfish I have come across this trip was some that had made their home in and over a purple anemone.

I am using diving weights to descend and try to get vertical shots using my sony rx100, that show the coral/fish and some of the blue ocean surface. I go down easily because of the weights, but have not mastered the art of staying down very long. I think my Neoprene spearfishing suit makes me more buoyant, and I pop back up after a few seconds. I am thinking of going out with the dive boat tomorrow without the neoprene, and just lycra sun protection to see if I can stay down longer.

I am sad that my days here are starting to wind down but I am happy that I can look forward to being reunited with my dogs. I can see on the web cams that Beau and Hayley are doing fine, since they know I leave once a year, talk to them through the laptop speakers, but always return. Jess doesn’t know that yet, and doesn’t get why Dad talks but remains hiding. Yesterday she chewed up two cords to webcams, which their caretaker Andrea and I are going to try to replace. Fortunately I have others there still working that I can see them with, and the laptop that automatically answers my phone call from the other side of the world so i can talk to the dogs is still working.

I realize again upon being parted from my border collies for a couple of weeks, how connected we are and how much love there is in my household. I have lived alone in the house my daughters grew up in for over twenty years, and although I did not envision that would happen I can say there has been no shortage of caring and companionship. I have always loved animals but been reluctant with people (introvert) so it was probably always meant to be that I would be alone. How grateful I am though to have the love of these intelligent dogs through the rest of my and their lives, with the possibility that when I step through to Heaven they are on the ready to walk with me on some more high paths

above: Black Spotted Pufferfish (Arothron nigropunctatus) being cleaned by Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus); Bunaken Island, Indonesia