Up with early wake-up call. Breakfast buffet is beautiful, but strictly non-combustible items on diving day. That means French toast, on which I accidentally pour chocolate sauce. Immediately swap out for syrup. We get Matt checked in at the dive center and head down the pier for the boat.
There are four other divers today. We are heading quite a ways away in order to dive just outside the reef in a channel where whale sharks often feed on the plentiful, flowing plankton. It’s a nice, easy ride out on what is definitely the nicest dive boat I’ve ever ridden on. Ten or twelve feet wide, new, clean, fresh water shower, bathroom and big, wide top deck to sprawl out on. In fact, when we go up there for the one hour ride to the dive site, one of the guys brings each of us a body sized two inch thick mat, like workout mats, and we lay out in the warm sun, rolling gently with the ocean swells.
Dive briefing up top, then we all head down to suit up. Matt and I have our own dive master for our check out dive. A mellow drift dive along a really long reef. Visibility is fair (due to plankton, which hopefully will attract whale shark and mantas). We cruise by sleeping stingray, four or five moray eels, some inside of their crevices and even a couple swimming along looking for a new crib. Then a lazy leopard shark and a couple of white tip sharks very interested in checking us out, especially after the other dive master rubbed the sides of a half filled plastic water bottle. Tiny baby clown fish (and their parents), juvenile queen angels, schools of all kinds of fish, your parrots and moorish idols, and near the end, a bigass manta snuffling in the sand. Cool! During our safety stop we had to buddy breathe and fill and clear our masks. No problem.
During our one hour surface interval, we enjoyed cake and soon were speeding across the water to meet up with the Mirihi snorkel boat – whale shark! When we arrived, though, it had headed back down. The guys stood on the bow and looked until they spotted dark spots, stopped the boat and told us to jump in and swim – giving directional corrections as we went. There were two beautiful mantas, swimming like graceful dancers together through the water. Nice. Back on the boat, we head out again, according to another call, but again the whale shark has disappeared into the depths. Our second dive, again over an hour, and again no whale sharks. More of the same, including a nice nudibranch siting. I am then just floating along when I hear an underwater exclamation as I was studying the life below me. I turn my head to the side and there is a large manta swimming by me about three feet away. Yowee! We finish the dive and surface…time to dry off. As we sit in the sun, the dive crew spreads out our lunch. Famished, we all fall on the food like we are sharks ourselves! By the time we finish, we are back at the resort. The dive crew handles all of our gear, and not just returning to the shop and rinsing, also bringing out to the boat and full set up! Talk about being pampered, the only place better than this was Vatulele in Fiji, where two guys jump into the water when I surfaced, and then proceeded to remove all my gear while I just floated there.
Matt and I head back to our bungalow. My ears were bothering me as I surfaced and now it sounds like I’m still about 50 feet below the ocean. We nap on our back deck,
then I get up and shower and he gets ready to play soccer. I work on the blog while enjoying peach iced tea with freshslices of lime and he is disappointed that there is not game today. He decides to circumnavigate the island, and then he meets me in the bar and says is took a whole ten minutes. We play cribbage – I win!- and then go to buffet dinner. Always a beautiful line of salads and appetizers:
and desserts:
as well as a line of hot dishes, a fresh soup and various homemade breads, a pasta sautee bar and hot carving station each night. Tonight’s theme: classics. We are looking forward to Asian night and Italian night this weekend.
Martin makes his rounds and when I mention my ear problem, he calls Izzy over, male nurse and smember of the dive team. Izzy tells me to first try snorting saltwater three times a day and if that doesn’t work, get some drops from the office. Will do. After dinner, I go to dive center and sign up for 9:30 morning dive (want to see how ears are) and we settle in some lounge chairs for the 9 pm dive movie. They have strung a super-size white tarp between two palm trees and there we are watching a movie under the full moon, with swaying palm trees and the gentle island breeze. Yes, it is absolutely as wonderful as it sounds. I have no questions about why people come here for honeymoons and romantic getaways. Everything at this resort is high quality, but not fussy or overdone. Simple, classy and everyone wants to help. 140 in staff for about 70 guests. Falling asleep during movie. Off to rest for another day. And yes, I walk down the steps from our deck to snort a handful or salt water before I retire!