1' (in 3 directions) from falling to a horrible (but beautiful) death.
climbing up here in flip-flops was a bitch.

view from big black rock	view from big black rock
another view from... yes, the big black rock.	bread boxes!
a big-ass gun. renaissance cruise ship in background.	big gun
me, by big gun. luke was excited to have taken this photo from "a position of dominance." heh...

This morning we were coaxed by Olivier into going on a safari around the island in a Land Rover Defender 110 driven by a cool local named Fan-Fan (pronounced nasally: "Fohn-Fohn"). Fan-Fan is from Faanui, and even took us to his house to check out local living. It was a pretty neat trip, especially because neither Luke nor I had stepped foot off of TOPdive resort since arriving a few days ago. Some of the views were to DIE for. Fan-Fan also stopped at every citrus tree we passed and picked fruit for us to eat. :)

The bad thing about leaving the womb was that we were thrust into the reality of tourist Bora Bora. There were horribly stereotypical "ugly Americans" everywhere. Argh. I talked to some guy at Bloody Mary's (the most famous bar/restaurant here) for 30 seconds because I saw that he was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Encinitas, CA". In those 30 seconds, I learned that he spends 29 days a year in Bora Bora with the people that run Bloody Mary's (he mentioned their names, but I didn't catch them), and that he has a new Jeep and Harley Davidson in the States, so he feels tied down there and can't stay in Bora Bora forever. Man. I really didn't care about any of that. It's ok, though. I don't ever have to talk to that guy again. I only don't like being American when I've overseas. Anyway, but TOPdive is as sheltered from that as a resort can be, so life is good here. I took some photos for the resort tonight. Why is it that video tripods are all so flimsy? They're plastic and stuff. So frustrating. I wish I had my tripod and remote shutter release.

Oh, the other thing is that I'm getting shocked by my Thinkpad when I touch certain plastic parts of the case. It's not a static-like shock... it's like the sustained drilling of alternating current, so I know it's coming from the wall. Olivier told me that it was because my euro-to-U.S. wall plug converter doesn't have a grounding prong, so he rigged one up with some wire. Now I no longer get shocked as badly, but when I rest the notebook on my bare thighs I still get a pretty nasty bite. When it first started happening, I was really confused. Actually, I still am confused. I'm not touching anything that conducts... yet, I still get shocked. Can anyone out there enlighten me? :)

TOPdive resort	"the cathedral"
dining in style...	me 'n luke, playing around with off-camera flash