Urchins for Dinner

Bon Appetit!

The urchins we caught and ate for dinner -- you eat them RAW! You spread the gooey guts on French bread with a spoon. An interesting experience...haha. And the taste? Salty like the ocean, of course!! Notice the "meat" comes in different colors too -- some are red, others white, and apparently they can also be brown, purple, and green!

I'm quite sleepy but wanted to take a quick sec to tell you about my big afternoon snorkeling with friends!! It was crazy and so much fun! Tessa and I got a ride down to the beach with our friends Jerome and Julian, we all got suited up in wetsuits (nearly impossible...it took all three of them to try to get mine on me...haha). We floated around with our flippers, masks, snorkeling tubes, oh and the guys had their harpoons and knives handy as well. That's right, this wasn't your average "granny-paddle-look-at-the-purdy-animals" trip, this was a "hunt-for-dinner!" snorkeling sesh.

The boys killed a cuttlefish and collected urchins (which we ate for dinner, see photo above), plus Julian found an octopus! It's head was about the size of, well I can't think of a reference, but if you put your hands together so just the fingertips are touching and make an oval shape, that's about the size of the head.

He normally would've killed it to eat, but he let us have a look at it, then we all got attached to it and didn't want to kill it, since it became our friend (clearly). haha Lucky day for that octopus :) I held it and it suctioned onto my hands -- ahh! They're such curious little creatures. It tried to swim away a few times, but they're pretty easy to catch again. It was really cool how it changed colors to blend in with whatever it was near. And it even inked a couple times. I was petting it, and after holding onto it awhile, it suctioned onto my hand and stayed with me. It was squishy and suctiony and color-changing, and just so cool.

It was definitely a fun adventure, even despite a little rain and lots of clouds. I am excited to see what else we'll find to do as the weather continues to improve!! :D