Beach Camera Breaks

 the day after cathy and roland arrived in solo, we took a taksi down the beaches south of jogja. we left around 6am and we already hitting the first beach by 8:45am. 

 roland looking extremely buff and me putting on sunblock.

 cathy getting some water before heading out in the sun.

 the first beach we went to was pantai siung--the beach we found so many shells at a few weeks ago. the tide was out. we waded into the shallow, tide pooly-type water and looked for critters!

 the big rocks that had seemed so far away a few weeks ago were accessible this time.

 i love this picture. all of the blue, the reflections--it's very striking.

 s holding up her skirt in the shallows.

 cathy looking at the beautiful scenery.

 me heading out into the water. (i'm often one of the last ones in since i put on a lot of sunblock.)

 b's reflection in the surf.

 another great shot with cathy. you'll notice in the background a bride and groom getting wedding shots. 

 here they are--with the bride looking right at us.

 i love these shots--the water was so clear. we saw some fish, crabs, an eel, and lots of star fish. 

 a nice series of pictures of the water coming in.

 i love the clear detail of the shell in this shot. and doesn't b's thumb look nice?

at this point, we thought we'd be able to walk out further to some other rocks. but just when we thought we'd do that, a big wave came in and pummeled us (or at least took us by surprise with its force). b got the worst of it. he got knocked down into the water, got a few sea urchin spines in his foot, and lost one of his slippers. the rest of us were ok, but we knew we shouldn't go out any further. we quickly retreated and came closer to the shore. the main problem with the tide coming in, though, was that when b fell into the water our camera got wet. sadly, our camera is a goner. so we couldn't take any more pictures of our adventures. below are some of the other highlights. 

we found a lot of shells again at pantai siung. we spent a couple hours there enjoying the shallow water, looking at the tide pools, and looking for shells. 

our next beach was pantai nglambor. this time, the tide was out enough that we decided to walk all the way down. it's a small cove beach. we swam around a little. b put on his goggles, but there wasn't much to see (and the water was pretty choppy). we looked for more shells (and found some) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and shallow water for awhile. 

our third beach was pantai indriyanti. because of ramadan, there were not a lot of people at the beach. we were not surrounded by people wanting our picture this time, and that suited us just fine. this was our best swimming beach although the swimming wasn't great (the tide was still too far out for the swimming to be all that good). but w and s had a blast playing together, and roland, b, and i swam for awhile too. cathy took a nap in a chair up above the shoreline. after she woke up, she stood in the sand, feet a hip's width apart, looking off into the water. we tried waving to her, but she didn't wave back. we learned later that she fell asleep while standing there! flying to indonesia is exhausting. 

our last beach was pantai krakal. we started at the far left side and swam around and played in the water there. it's a fun spot with some deeper parts. it gets waves, but it's pretty protected too. after playing there, we walked along the shore looking for shells, talking, the kids running around playing, etc. i found three of my best shells ever within about a 10 foot radius. 

around 5:15pm we got back into the taksi and drove home. it was a long drive back (we got home around 8), but it was another fun and adventurous beach day.