objects in picture are farther than they appear

Sabrina discovered at the Rarontongan that she liked snorkeling, so after an hour or so we headed back to find someplace where she could rent a snorkeling set – we'd been sharing the mask I brought from home, the snorkel was a casualty of my yesterday afternoon snorkeling adventure off the Rarotongan Backpacker's beach.

The first place we went was the Muri Lagoon, where we'd been swimming a few days earlier. It was rumored to be a good snorkeling spot, but it was grassy with no coral so we didn't like it as much. We did see lots of triggerfish, pufferfish, and the other usual suspects, plus two scary-looking polka dot eels. Again, eels are cooler behind glass. We swam all the way out to one of the three little islands...and then back. It was far!

Next we headed to a beach a few kilometers down the road – walking, of course, to save bus money! There was a ton of coral there, so we had better luck with fish – everything from before, plus damselfish, butterfly fish, more types of angelfish and little white fish that skipped along the bottom.

Buses were stopped for dinner when we were done, so we ended up chatting with a man and a woman training to represent the Cook Islands in the triathlon at the South Pacific Games in Samoa in late September, and the woman gave us a ride back to our hostel. It was great to get a ride and get back while it was light out, and she was entertaining to talk to – she's a Kiwi married to an islander who runs a charter fishing business that had actually taken a bunch of the guys from our hostel out that morning.