That caught your interest, I’m sure!
Only doing one dive today, but it’s the one that Drew and most guests/divemasters say is the best: Magic Mountain. Have early breakfast, enjoy the sun (every afternoon around 2:30 there’s a reasonably hard rainstorm) and then report to the dive center at 11:30 for the midday dive. We receive the briefing from Jamal, then board our boat, the Falaya. It’s been lovely diving from the point of view that it’s between one and three divers to a divemaster; small groups indeed. It’s a 15+ minute ride out to the dive site, which they locate with GPS. I am rocking to my tunes on the way out, and there are moments of complete ecstasy: white puffy clouds dancing in the blue sky, wind rushing over me, boat zipping along, little islands (karsts) carpeted with jungle green and the occasional birds dipping in and out of the canopy, and the sunshine warming my whole body. As in yoga, I open my chest wide so my heart is as big as I can get it, so it, too, can soak up the sensorial delights.
Back to business: someone jumps in to check the current, Herry rolls in and they hand him my BCD (buoyancy compensation device) and I slip over the side to put it on in the water. This is to avoid any more stress on my back than necessary. Works out really well and they are all so great about it.
We descend and there is indeed a medium current. We head through it (coming from our right/the north) along a ridge, as we descend to about 22 meters. Along the way, Surprise!, Alan (a lovely English gentleman who dives along with Herry and I) accidentally kicks the regulator out of my mouth. I am so pleased to not panic, look around for it (can’t go too far!) and pop it back in. With a deep exhale, I’m back in business. The coral rises a bit, and we are hit with a very strong current. I am kicking my little legs with a purpose, and Alan grabs onto a piece of coral. Herry unravels a 4-foot long piece of rope with a large stainless, non-pointy hook on one end, and a plastic handle on the other (gots to get me one of those!), hooks it onto a piece of coral, and hands it over to me. I hold on, and all stress (and heavy breathing) dissipates.
What happens for the next 20 minutes is fantastic. We are hanging above a large structure of coral, along with hundreds of fish of all sizes, all of us facing into the current somewhat like horses that face into the wind during a rainstorm. I have the time to observe, and let me just say that there are gold fish, green fish, striped fish and runty fish. Yellow fish with black-striped tails, many fish hearty and hale, but no fish as big as whales (got carried away). As I watched them, I could see them doing their little swimmy thing to stay in the same place in the current, but I could also watch when they got tired and stopped and would shoot back a foot or so before they started up their little booty-shaking dance once again. And there I was being a big old fish in the current too! I would hold the rope close to the hook, and that would hug me close down to the coral floor, and less in the current. But my favorite was to hold all the way at the end, and put my legs straight out behind me and other arm straight out to the side – all of a sudden, I was a kite in the wind! I could move myself around just by “flapping my wing” or leaning into/away from the rope in a certain way. Giggling! Exhilarated! Amazed! Full of wonder and appreciation! What an experience.
This area is actually a manta cleaning station, the hope being that a big old manta would come up for service while we were hanging out. Didn’t happen. So after about 20 or so minutes, we reeled ourselves in, gathered the ropes, and headed back along the ridge and around the pinnacle on the other side. Partway there, I noticed I was hearing bubbles, which is not usual. I passed my hand above my regulator connections and the top of my tank, and sure enough, a steady stream of bubbles coming out confirmed that I was leaking air! I showed Herry – it’s amazing how much you can actually communicate under water – and he buddied Alan up with another dive master, and we went to 15 feet for our safety stop before heading to the surface for a pick up. I ascertained that air wasn’t leaking too quickly, and I was fine. And as we relaxed for our stop squealed and I turned around quickly to see a medium-sized manta gracefully swimming right by us. Exciting to the last!
The others were up soon after and we were zipping back to the resort for a well-earned lunch. Relaxed during the afternoon and read in my villa through the rather strong afternoon storm. Divers like the easy afternoons – here’s proof:
The walk to my villa, along the rocky edge of our island:
And a sideview of the villa:
Note the built-in hammock on the lower left corner (where the wooden deck seems to disappear and a webbing of rope is there instead), my lounge chairs, and bathing suit drying on neat hooks, all under the protective cover of my thatched roof.
Oh, to get to the title reference: at dinner, we cover a wide range of topics. Tonight Jim was telling us about his trip out to watch humpback and killer whales. He discussed how they found a whole pod of humpbacks that were playing and all of a sudden, the boat leaves. Upset, he asked the guide why they were leaving such a lovely scene. The guide replied that not too far away was a pod of killer whales mating. I asked, “could you see anything? what did it look like?” and he responded with the quote above. I told him I needed a minute to gather myself before we could continue the conversation!!