A Weekend in Paradise

Relaxing, breathtaking, and painful. Those are the three words I would use to describe my weekend on the island of Ahnt. On Friday, we headed to the beautiful ring of islands off of Pohnpei called Ahnt. The water was crystal clear, and different shades of blue and green that I can’t even describe to you. It was an hour-long boat ride to get to the island where we were camping. As we waited for Franky’s boat to arrive with our luggage, Kim immediately went to work of finding a coconut to eat. She soon found one and then proceeded to attempt to open it by throwing it at a cement block over and over again. She got one open after quite a few throws! She’s quite the resourceful woman! J It took us a fairly short amount of time to set up our hammocks and tarps. After that was taken care of, some of us went for a swim in the beautiful warm ocean.

Relaxing under the palm trees and blue skies

To avoid getting bit by mosquitos, I slept in a sweatshirt, and long pants tied at the bottom so they wouldn’t crawl up my leg. The only parts of me exposed were my face, hands and feet. All three parts got bit like crazy!! Since sleeping in hammocks is not something I am really used to, I slept fitfully that night. I rolled out of my hammock at 9:30 am and went straight to the water to swim. Our entire Sabbath consisted of swimming, eating coconuts, and laying on the beach either relaxing or reading. This was definitely a weekend we all needed! No sound of children running wild on the school campus, just the sound of crashing waves and the soft swaying of palm fronds.

At night we would lay out a tarp and lay out under the stars and full moon. The moon was almost too bright! We couldn’t see the stars very well but on Friday night, Amanda, Tony, Jen, and I were laying out on the tarp looking at the man on the moon. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I see a shooting star! I practically crawl on top of Amanda with excitement and point to the star that was falling from the sky. It was the longest shooting star I had ever seen! It lasted at least 5 seconds! Saturday night, I slept very well, only waking up once or twice. (I think it helped that I took Nyquil.) At 7:00 am, I was out of bed and changing to go swim. We didn’t leave until noon so I had plenty of time to relax on the beach and swim for a good while before leaving. Because the tide was out, the water was very shallow around the island. Karyn, Jen, and I spent a lot of time just sitting in the water, playing with the sand. On the way back, we stopped the boats and the mouth of the channel to go snorkeling for bit. The drop off was simply beautiful! The water was an unbelievable blue that my camera could just not capture. I can’t wait to get my scuba license! I’ll be able to see things at much closer level.

Crystal clear water

The boat ride back was so fun! I sat at the front of the boat with Karyn and going on the open ocean with our little fishing boat was quite the ride! Going over the waves reminded me of a roller coaster! Karyn and I definitely had the most fun, whooping and hollering when we went over a good wave. I have to say the boat ride brought me so much joy! I’m not really sure why, but going up and down on the waves made me laugh out loud with real happiness. Getting back to the apartment, we got to see what our sunburns looked like without the glaring sun. Even though I reapplied sunscreen several times throughout the day, my shoulders, legs, and face were all red. That’s the painful part of the weekend. Every little touch, made my shoulders and legs hurt. On Monday morning I shaved my legs. Oh my word. SUCH PAIN. PE time did not help when some of the boys patted me on the back. When I flinched, they said “Oh miss! Did you get sunburned??”

Please keep praying for all of us. There's always someone sick among the SMs no matter how hard we try to stay healthy.