Today was another event filled day in beautiful Croatia!

I woke up this morning early enough to make breakfast, but not too early. I decided to eat a full breakfast because I would be sea kayaking today and that can really take it out of you. Of course it was not a sausage breakfast today, which is the only one that I actually like, so I had a couple bowls of cereal. I'm happy that they always have cereal in the morning and skim milk, because even if I don’t like the rest of the food, I know I can rely on that.

I made my way off the boat to get on the bus. It was a good group of people who went on the trip. There was about 30 of us total. We made a short bus ride to the old city, (apparently the old city is where EVERYTHING is) and walked down to the water. There were kayaks, dry bags, life vests, and water waiting for us. I met a girl and we decided to be partners on the kayak. We were one of the last groups to get on our boat, and it was a good thing we waited because we got kayaks that had back rests in them. It really makes things a lot more enjoyable if you have the seat in the kayak.

The girl I was with told me she had been kayaking before so I thought this was going to be an easy journey. I told her I would sit in the back and do the steering and all she needed to do was paddle like normal and I would follow her pace. I don’t know why this was so difficult for her, but she did not stick with a pace and would randomly stop paddling or paddle more than once on the same side. It made my job a lot harder than it should have been. She also splashed me the ENTIRE time and I probably drank about a gallon of salt water thanks to her. It would have been better if she had just sat there and made me do all the work.

Anyways, we made our way to the island of Lapid, and "parked" the boats. Immediately I heard a familiar squawking and went off looking for the peacocks! I found one in no time what-so-ever and chased it around for awhile taking its picture over and over. It was strange that I was able to chase it, because most of the time peacocks are aggressive and will chase you! I then found another one that was sitting on the top of a playground. I took its picture and then decided to see if I could touch it. Low and behold I was able to pet its tail a few times before it jumped off the playground and ran away. Ive never been able to do that before so it was really cool to be able to do.

Finally everyone arrived at the island and they handed out our snorkeling masks. We walked down a path do get to another part of the island. We ran into quite a few peacocks on our way. There was all sorts of baby peacocks as well. Some were as small as little chicks and some were a little bigger, about the size of my bunny. The babies were all with their mothers, so it was interesting to see the variety of colors.

We got to the water and made our way in to snorkel. The snorkeling here is nothing like the snorkeling that you would do in Hawaii or other tropical places. The water in the Adriatic Sea is to cold to harbor coral reefs and tropical fish. The sea life here does its best at blending in with the surroundings. A lot of neutral colored fish and plants. It took awhile for my eyes to get adjusted, but once they were I was able to see quite a lot. There were urchins, and sea slugs, starfish, and schools of fish. I eventually found myself swarmed by a school of a thousand fish. It was really cool to just be floating there with all of these fist around me.

I eventually looked up out of the water and over at the shore and low and behold it was covered in naked people. I had reached the naked beach area! I have no problem with nudity, but when you don’t expect to see penis, and you look up and see lots of penis it can be a true shock.

I enjoyed the water for a bit longer before making my way out. It was the strangest feeling getting out of the water because I felt completely drunk. I couldn’t stand straight and was super dizzy. I was not the only one who felt this way either. I shook it off and worked my way back to down the path. As I was walking I saw many more peacocks and their babies including a white peacock with black spots. I've seen colorful peacocks, and albino peacocks, but never spotted peacocks. That was a first for me. 

There was a small "lake" on the island which was filled with water that came from an underground linkage to the sea. It was more like a small pond with salt water. There was a cave on one side which had the tunnel to the sea in it. The water here was even colder than in the sea itself. I'm not sure why that was. There was also sea life in the water and I saw some fish and another couple of starfish as well.

It was then time for us to make our journey back to Dubrovnik. It was a much easier paddle back because the wind was behind us this time. We made it back to shore and I snuck over to my pizza place to get a slice while I was waiting for people to unload out of the kayaks. We then took a group picture and made our way back to the bus. We got back to the ship with just enough time to race and grab lunch before they closed lunch.

I then took a shower and decided that today was the day that I would walk the city walls. I took a bus back to the Old City and bought my ticket for the city walls.

I walked up to the top of the city walls and walked along the walls taking pictures from every spot possible. It was always nice to run into people who spoke English because I could ask them to take my picture for me. This was the first time that I have done something this trip and not run into any SAS students.

While walking the city walls you can see far off into the distance, but the most amazing sight is to be able to see all the roof tops of the buildings in the old city. At certain point I was able to see ruin from attacks on the city. So much history is in the Old City of Dubrovnik! 

It took me about 2 hours to walk all the way around the city. After I finished, I grabbed another slice of pizza and made my way back to the ship. I had some dinner and then got in my bed to watch a movie and fall asleep. Tomorrow is an early day!