Finding amazing sea shells was so easy. They were everywhere. I collected them, took photos, and left them on the beach. You cannot tell from the photographs but the one on the left was huge!

The beauty of the beach that was shadowed by the trash that is accumulating. This is not their trash. This is trash that washes up on the beach. Islands all over the world face the same issue. This is nothing new. Here are some interesting items I saw. The big piece of styrofoam with tires on it was drug in by fishermen. It was floating just off shore. Zulvan is trying to get enough money to buy a machine to process all the plastic so they can ship it to Jakarta and sell it. I spent half the week worried about all the styrofoam on the beach. Zulvan said not to worry about the styrofoam. They can break it down into the tiny balls and use it to make their homes stronger and sound proof. They mix it in with the cement. I did not set up the syringe picture–it looked just like this on the beach!! Jalil picked it up and said “Corona!”.

Even with all the trash there is still so much beauty on which to focus!!

Daddy has a ton of these at the house. I have a few in my yard from his plant. If you have the moon flower–I have no idea if this is the correct name–in your yard, you can make coffee with its seeds. However, you need to know it is a powerful hallucinogenic. They did not talk me into trying it!

I did an Enggano plant edition, but I did not have time to post about the animals so sharing some photos and stories. Healers use dog meat for traditional medicine.

The “flying fox” or fruitivorous bats are diurnal (fly during the day). They are everywhere. They look like small eagles flying around. These beauties are also used for medicine. I was a few feet away from the baby bat in the pictures. I thought about when I read the book Stellaluna to my students. They loved that book!! We think it fell from the tree where its Mom was taking care of it. It was really cute. Just look at that face. I am sure it did not make it. We found it on the ground and put it in a tree. I told them not to tell me if it did not make it.

Found this really cool BIG bug outside my hotel room. With its long antennae, the best I could measure it was at least 6″ long.

The boat we took to the beach this week smelled terrible!! I said, “Wow! This smells like really dead fish!” Nope. Not fish. It was a dead sea cucumber. Never one seen in person. While we were on the most beautiful beach, Jalil found one!

So many new things to see!! I have never seen a big clam–alive or dead. Saw both. Took this really cool picture of a dead clam that washed up on the beach. Found the living one when we were walking from the boat to the most beautiful beach. Hard to tell in the pictures be these are at least 14″ across.