About three weeks ago, they started sending around the sign-ups. Snorkeling in Eilat. I signed up dutifully, as I had never been snorkeling before, past students have said that it's really great, and we weren't really given the option to say no. It was basically "You don't have to go if you don't want to, but we want everyone to go, so we'll go through every student at least three times to make sure that everyone has signed up...but you don't have to go." Whatever.
The trip was on Sunday. We left at 6:30 in the morning, which was lame, and we got there about 11 am. It was funny, as we were driving, me and a few people on my bus were looking out the bus window, and we realized that the scenery was that of the Judean wilderness. There were camels, and we were surrounded by dry, brown hills. If we had gone around the West Bank, like we normally do, the scenery would have been green, and we would have had green scenery the entire time. It wasn't until we passed Jericho that we realized that yes, we were driving through the West Bank. It was rather exciting, as we had consigned ourselves to never seeing it again.
At some point in our trip, the announcement was made that there would only be enough snorkel sets for half the group to be snorkeling at one time. Therefore, upon reaching Eilat, there was a mad, crazy dash to get ready first to go out in the water. I took too long, so I missed out on the first wave of snorkeling, so I contented myself with swimming in the swimming area. The beach was rocky, which was a but of a turn off, but the water was super clear, and the perfect temperature. It didn't take long to notice the fish that were swimming with us. They didn't pay us any mind, really, they were just swimming around, and away from us if we got too close. In the swimming section of the beach, I saw several fish that looked like Dory from Finding Nemo, a few black and white striped fish, and a straight black fish.
After about 45 minutes I noticed that there were a lot of people who were finished with snorkeling, so I found a mask and headed out. Remember, up to this point, I had never been snorkeling before in my life. I had heard that the Red Sea was really clear, and that it was amazing, but the pieces never really clicked together in my head for some reason until I put my head under the water.
It was a coral reef. I saw a coral reef! Living, thriving, with coral and fish of every shape and size!
Basically, it was the best day ever.
It was so much fun, swimming around and seeing the various types of fish. Big ones as long as my arm, little schools of little silvery fish, bigger schools of striped fish, long thin fish, clown fish, bottom feeders, fish that were hanging around eating the algae off the dock. And corals, every shape, size, color, and pattern! Ah man, I can't even describe how beautiful it all was!
I had two favorite fish. One was longer than my forearm, and had bright green and purple colors. The other was about the size of my hand. It looked like a dirty, reddish brown color, but when the sun hit it just right it shined purple and orange colors. Super pretty. I also enjoyed swimming through the schools of the little silver fish. My favorite coral was one that was grey on the bottom with a periwinkle blue on the tips.
After we were done snorkeling, we had a few hours to just hang out at the beach. During this time, a lion fish decided to swim up next to the dock. If you don't remember what one looks like, I would recommend that you Google it, they're pretty cool looking. And poisonous. Don't worry, none of us really got close, but it hung out next to the dock for about an hour, just swimming increasing and decreasing in depth.
That evening we ate dinner at a kibbutz on the way home. A kibbutz is more or less a socialist commune. Towards the beginning of the 20th century, the Jews who came to the Holy Land decided that they were going to live a socialist lifestyle, to show the world how it is done more or less. Many of the current Israeli towns and villages started out as kibbutz. There aren't as many now, but there are still quite a few around, especially up in the Galilee. Some of them actually do quite well.
Kind of the symbol of the kibbutz is the cow. For some reason, every kibbutz has cows. At the kibbutz that we ate at, there were plastic life-sized statues of cows everywhere. It was kinda fun. And we had ice cream for dinner! They had a ton of cool flavors. I ended up getting Boston cheesecake and hazelnut, which was basically nutella ice cream.
Another four hour bus ride (that I slept through most of) and we were back, tired, exhausted, and sunburned. Despite that, it really was an amazing day.
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