more australians, snorkeling, beach massage

last day on the beach... after a day completely devoted to sloth yesterday, i am going to GO FOR A HIKE, just to prove to myself that i can.
yesterday was quite lovely - a boat came onto the beach to pick me up, and after a couple of stops to pick up more people (a handful of thai tourists, a lovely scottish couple, and a pair of hilarious australians) we went off for a day-long expedition to the outlying islands to snorkel, swim, sunbathe, eat barbecue mystery meat and pineapple on the beach, and fish (this last bit didn't work because "they are making new fish farm," which was OK by me). the water is gorgeous and clear and green and warm and not like anywhere i have ever been before; the snorkeling i have to admit is a little depressing because the coral is about 99% dead as a doornail. we actually saw a guy sawing up chunks of what little live coral remains to hand out pieces to little thai kids who looked as if they were on a school field trip, which was possibly even more depressing. it's hard to get a sense of where the sensibility is in terms of ecological conservation - on the one hand, the beaches are immaculate, and there is almost no rubbish strewn along the roads as you see in a lot of the developing world (there are stretches of santa rosa where there is more) but there are no recycling facilities so far as i can tell, and the whole thing with the coral, so ???
at the end of the day i treated myself to a beach massage, which was hilarious - while the quality of the actual massage is not dissimilar to professional massages i have had in the US, you realize how much of the total experience is dictated by other factors. for instance, the woman who was massaging me kept up a running conversation with the massage lady next to her, and about half way through her kids turned up. she sent the eight year old to go buy groceries, and when the eight year old came back she scolded her for not having bought the right thing, and then told her to get a rag to swat away bugs, which the (now very sulky) eight year old did; meanwhile there were a couple of dogs sniffing around, and the lady's two year old lay down on the towel next to me and waved her legs in the air and sucked her thumb and eventually fell asleep with her back against me, which was lovely. a far cry from the soothing new age music and immaculately clean sheets etc of the standard first world massage. also thai massages have the advantage that they do your gluteal muscles (or what passes for muscles in my case at this point), which is great - in the US i guess it's illegal to rub someone else's bum for money :)
anyway. off for a hike! hope all are well...