God's Aquarium

4/21

This morning's first dive was just an absolute joy! We saw big creatures and little creatures and it was all great! Free swimming eel x 2, 3 bumphead parrotfish (big!), 5 barracuda together in a gang, 1 black tipped reef shark that we saw twice cruising along the top of the reef, plus manta shrimp, false clownfish, real clownfish, etc etc. I absolutely loved it! So many fish! Even one super ugly big one with buck teeth and the strangest rotating eyeballs. I couldn't look away!

For breakfast, we were treated to donuts with chocolate sprinkles and homemade bread - both chocolate and raisin varieties. Holy carbs! Oh well! It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't spend all day basically in a swimsuit.  "You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool anyone when you are wearing a swimsuit!!"

Now waiting next dive, which will be Chicken Reef.

8 PM

Well the next two dives are in the book and we just did the usual relaxing between dives upstairs. I am still working on studying and also I finally read the magazines I downloaded. I may have taken a little n-a-p too! We have all been commenting on how well we have been sleeping. Whether it is the gentle rocking of the boat or the exertion during the day, I can't say, but it has been some amazing sleep!

Tonight was another PB&J night with watermelon. I can't wait to get to land and have some control over food! Also looking forward to getting some more bandaids and stuff for cleaning my leg a bit better.  It seems to be scarring ok but the bruise on my butt must still be pretty bad because the old grandpa boat captain saw it today again and pointed and winced. Glad my butt can be such a topic of discussion! Haha I can't see it, so I'll have to assume it looks as bad as it feels!

After dinner, we went outside and were able to see the stars that make up the reference points for the Southern Cross, which looks a bit like a kite. I would stay out longer but the island near us here has a ton of bats with sufficient wingspan to come for a visit, which they demonstrated!  

It is hard to believe we only have one more night after tonight on this boat! I am glad I didn't miss all the great things I got to see underwater and all the conversations with my fellow divers.  Those are what I'll cherish and take with me and I'll hopefully soon forget the food, the lack of dive safety, and the owner with his little Lolita girlfriend that looked about 14! Eew.

We are trying to figure out how to share photos, since we have some amazing underwater photographers on this trip. I can't wait to see their best images, which of course I will share!