Running on Kauehi

Too much caffeine.

Bri usually makes tea when she wakes up, so the coffee pot has made inconsistent appearances lately but today I made a big ol' pot of joe. I might or might not have had a little too much (ok I had a LOT) and been a little too excited to get the day started. To curb some of my enthusiasm (work off some energy) I jumped in and swam for nearly an hour while Bri and Rob got ready to go ashore to check out the store and flyfishing. Since they were dinghying over, I wanted to hitch a ride with them and go for a run.

Since the store didn't open until 11 or 12 (after the supply plane flew in) we got a little bit of a late start so it was hot hot hot. Luckily Kauehi isn't nearly as humid as the Marquesas, but there was very little shade on the road out to the airport where I ran. Even though the road was flat, it was one of the prettier settings for a run I've ever seen. So pretty that I ran until I stopped sweating and saw spots. I tried to blame this on the coffee instead of dehydration since I had to run back the same way I came.

One benefit of the way motus are shaped is that the beach is never very far away so I was able to soak my hat in water and splash some on myself to cool off. Eventually I ran into Rob and he told me about a little road that runs really close to the beach through the coconuts with more shade. When I got back to the store we asked some locals how far the airport was, since I had almost made it there before turning around. They told us it's about 5k away--which means I ran almost 6 miles in the heat after sitting on my butt on a sailboat for a couple weeks! Might have been a little too much.

When we got back to the boat and rehydrated I was still buzzing from coffee. Ben was working on cleaning up the cabin so Bri and I jumped in the water and scrubbed a little at the bottom of the boat. The water is warm and clear enough here that little things grow pretty quick. It also means you can get sunburned while in the water--but Bri and I wore rashguard tops to block a little UV.

Around 7:30 pm the coffee finally wore off and I konked out hard. The stargazing is really pretty here, even with the city lights but I didn't see much of it before falling asleep.

Here's some pictures of beach combing the other day. Ben decided that if sailing doesn't work out he'll try bamboo rafting.