Welcome Home Papa

After 10 beautiful sunny and hot days snorkeling, kiting, and sailing through the atolls and lagoons of French Polynesian, Shane returned to rainy and cold Seattle. We, at least were glad to have him home and in one piece. He's actually very glad to be home too and missed everyone terribly. He had lots of good stories and pictures of his adventures. Probably the most fascinating being the swims with sharks. Swims. Because once was not enough. And of course going in the daylight was not aderenaline pumping enough so they went at night too. In the channel where they come to feed. He said there were several "exciting" moments and hurried jumps back into the dinghy. I think one of the guys had to kick a shark. Sounds fun, huh?

There are a ton of pictures but I thought this one was cute and the background very evocative the places they got to go. He did get a little sunburned and learned that Banana Boat has cheap ingredients and anyone on the boat who used it got burned. I think Coastal was the name of the one that worked, although a little more pricey. But skins worth it.

They go to visit a pearl farm and tons of deserted beaches and hard to get to reefs and islands. I'll put up more pictures in another post after I sort through them all. I still haven't seen the ones of the sharks. Shane said there were black tip and white tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, and what someone described to be a lemon shark. All of which don't got too agressive unless you bother them. But some of them seemed to be bothered and were doing the classic agitated shark behavior as they circled closer anc closer to Shane. Cyril was thrilled with the stories, of course. Luckily, I didn't get to hear about these adventures until he was home. The sattelite was down so there was no communication with the boat. ON his Panama trip he could send e-mail but this time we just had to wait until he got back to L.A., which was a little hard. One of the things that struck Shane the most was the the Tahitian sense of fashion, obviously the French influence. He said just walking down the street you saw and felt that people cared how they looked and paid attention to their attire. He said the women were very feminine in their dress and mostly wore dresses. Pretty ones.No risque in your face outfits. Just nice. Then he got to home and saw everyone in their sweats and t-shirts and was struck by the huge difference. He found a dress he wanted to get me but had no idea what size- it was European sizing too-so he passed on it. Everything there is horribly expensive.

We are so glad to have him home and luckily we'll have a three day week-end to enjoy before he works a full week. Unfortuantely, he does have to work today and tomorrow but at least we'll have the week-end.

For more pictures and details about the trip you can check out the boats website and read the captain's log. Some of the pictures Shane actually took, although they are attributed to his friend Craig. Shane eventually broke his camera by diving too deep. He thought the 3 meter limit was just a suggestion. Boys.

The kids and I colored this very colorful sign. It helped pass some time Tuesday as were getting anxious for his arrival the next day.