060102, 2302hr, florida time.

we finally left key west today. but man, today's just as fun as yesterday.

in the morning, we went snorkelling at the coral reefs. my first time, i was feeling really quite nervous. it took some time, and a few gulps of sea water to teach me to grip well to the mouthpiece and breathe through my mouth. the water-tight goggle was indeed very tight, everytime i forget, and try to breathe through my nose, i feel like i was suffocating [because my nose is also covered by this goggle], and i panick more, and i drink more sea water. it really sucks. but i guess after a while i got used to it, and it became more enjoyable. the visibility wasn't too good, but i'm glad to at least see quite some fish, some beautiful red corals, and lots of sea-grass. hahaha. today isn't quite the warmest day around, and the water definitely didn't feel like the 75F that our boat assistant told us it would be. felt so cold, shivering all the way through the snorkelling and all the way on the way back to the dock from our snorkelling spot. bleah. the cold's the only bad thing, i guess.

after a huge pizza lunch [anything tastes better than sea water, quite definitely], we went jetskiing. argh, the most exciting and yet most painful experience. tk and shuyi were on the same jetski with me, and priya and yahui on the other. at first, i was steering, but i was so nervous my fingers pulling on the gas throttle [ie controlling the speed] got numb, then painful. bleah. so i let shuyi take over. big mistake. she was quite a daredevil - the "dun say die" attitude of a 19 year old, i guess. we went to top speed, spun around, bumped around in the waves, quite a few times i almost flew off the jetski. finally, in an attempt to sort of have the jetski rotate on the same spot, she accidentally pulled the gas throttle a little too much, and before i knew it, we toppled over, and were all in the water. more sea water into my stomach. great.

tk and i decided it would be better for him to steer then [i didn't want to]. while steering, tk tried to explain what went wrong with shuyi's techniques, and tried to demonstrate how to manage weight-balancing on the jetski. another bad mistake. second time into the water. more more more sea water. sigh. by then, i felt quite relieved to know that the jetski's engine seemed to have been kinda flooded and slow. how wrong could i be. the third time i ended in the water, i flew off in a spectacular projectile motion, while tk was adjusting the jetski to try cutting a wave. he didn't even realise i flew off till shuyi went "eh, cindy's gone." argh. i had a few more gulps of sea water. i landed on my face, so it really hurt so bad. i felt so angry and exasperated, i was going to start crying. when i finally swam back to the jetski where tk and shuyi were both amused and worried, i couldn't keep up with my anger anymore. i guess it is funny. i was the most afraid to end up in the water, and i turned out to be the one most prone to drop in. sigh. took home a stomach-full of sea water as souvenir.

after the exciting jetskiing experience, i was quite ready to throw in the towel and call it a day. but the last planned activity of the day was parasailing. hmm. i figured it would be relatively easy [no need to coordinate breathing] and relatively dry [unless the parachute cords snap, i should be pretty much in the air the whole time] so i thought, what the heck, might as well complete the day with a bang. while waiting for our turn, we had fun on the beach burying priya's legs and in the mean time, the beautiful sun rays more or less dried my shorts, so i felt much warmer and more comfortable. parasailing is kinda boring i guess, cos you really don't do anything but sit on your butt and just enjoy the view. the view was great, of course, it was about 4pm+ by the time we got up to the air, the sun was already setting. unfortunately, my reasons for going ahead with parasailing was just half-right. yes, it was easy. no, i didn't stay dry. towards the end of the 15 minutes ride in the air, on our way down back to the boat, the jokers steering the boat slowed down just enough to dip us into the water before speeding up to lift us into the air again. then dipped us in again. except i wasn't just dipped in, i was practically dunked in. i got drenched from head to toe again. thank god at least i got smart and kept my mouth shut. sea water doesn't taste nice at all.

finally, it was time for dinner and wrap up our key west experience. had a great chinese dinner. rather surprising i guess, that a small town like key west to have 8 chinese restaurants. the guy at the tourist information center recommended one for us, so we got there and had some wonderful szechuan chinese food. a great end point to the whole key west part of the trip.

right now, we're at homestead, and tomorrow we're gonna visit the everglades national reserves. after going right to the southernmost point of america [we have pictures to prove it!] we're finally turning back north to return to campus. back to cold dreary snowy winter weather. sigh.