After a few hours of sleep on the hard deck with just our beach towels we woke up to a beautiful day with flat water and partly cloudy skies, it is hard to stay in a bad mood even with only a couple hours of sleep when you are in such a beautiful place. We were fortunate that all the other guests felt the same way, it was a terrible situation but we all made the best of it and looked forward to our day on Whitehaven beach and our second snorkel spot. The captain made a direct line for Whitehaven beach and after a couple hours of sailing we pulled into a beautiful bay, dropped anchor beside 10 or 12 other boats and scooted to shore on the snorkeling dingy. Once assembled on shore we set out on a nature hike through the island jungle and up to a lookout at the top of the island. We saw several huge spiders bigger than a typical adults opened hand and a few significantly smaller about the size of Shabree's outstretched hand, we also passed a small eco tour group that was experimenting with eating the green ants that are so common everywhere here. They seemed to approve of the taste but I think our whole group was glad to walk quickly by and miss participating. The lookout had amazing views of the white sand beach which we learned was 98% pure silica (apparently they made the Hubbell telescope lens out of the sand). We also had a good view of the bay and some of the other islands including a much smaller island just off shore that Jai informed us had the largest concentration of Death Adders in the world, as he put it "good island to stay away from". Once we had all soaked in the view it was down to the beach. Being that we were still in deadly stinger territory the hot beach was almost too much as anytime a cool off was in order it involved pulling on a full body black neoprene suit that was wet from previous swims, had been sitting in the 32 deg C (90 F) sun and of course had collected a fair amount of sand in all the wrong places, no fun. The beach did have small lemon sharks swimming around and we were able to see a few rays so it was well worth it. We beach bummed for a couple of hours before being rounded up to head back to the boat for some afternoon snorkeling.
Our boat consisted of 21 people 1. Crazy Captain - skinny guy with a thin creepy mustache and a thick accent from who knows where, an asshole to Jai and had all kinds of lies for us guests on bed bugs; seemed to think our toxic cabin smelled fine even though he hadn't been down there and thought he could convince us of the same; liked to brag to us about his personal beautiful sail boat that he did only high end tours for "exclusive clients" on, yeah right that’s why he was stuck on a boat with 21 tourists and 25 million bed bugs, business must have been booming for him. 2. Jai (deck hand) a young kid at 24, great fun and very helpful he wants to learn as much about the boats and then head to the Caribbean and captain or work on boats there. Jai was on his second back to back and had to go directly back out as soon as we returned. 3. Kitty, our cook/hostess - she was a nice gal, really knew her way around a boat and she did help Jai now and again with getting the sails set-up and keeping things organized. 4. Dotar, Kass, Mom, and aunt Hazel. Dotar, mom and Hazel are from Israel and Kass, Dotar’s girlfriend is from Melbourne. We had a great time chatting with them, mom told Shabree, "you should not live away from your mom" in her very thick accent, don’t think she liked having Dotar so far away in Australia. Hazel spoke English perfectly and she even lived in San Diego for a few years. Kass works at Adidas in Melbourne and she and Dotar have been together for four years. It was interesting to hear them talk about Israel and to reminisce with travelers that are actually more hated than Americans, they were talking about their flight over and how they had to fly for like 30 hours when a direct path over the middle east could get them there in 10 or 15. 5. Brian, a goofy guy who grew up in Chicago, but has lived in Austria for the last 45 years. He just got divorced after 25 yrs and decided to clear his mind on a world trip, but 10 days before he left he told us he had fallen in love with a woman so he is excited to get back and see where it goes. 6. Paul and his French girlfriend, he is originally from Australia but has lived in France for the last 7 years, he speaks French like a native, we had fun listening to them speak. Paul is now living in Spain, he works for the European Union and analyzes data about environmental issues, his girlfriend is from Paris and now lives in London, she loves London but they wished they could live in the same place. Paul is taking her around Australia to meet his family and friends. These two were very chill and a lot of fun to talk with. 7. A couple from Taiwan, they did not speak English well so they kept to themselves, but they were goofy and always laughing, and yes, taking pictures. 8. The 4 Swiss beach volleyball players that spoke French/German, they were very nice and extremely goofy, and one of them is living in Aussie right now for his work. 9. Two girls from Germany, they kept to themselves. 10. Another two girls from Germany who were super cute and are nannies in Wagga Wagger.
Once the whole gang was on the boat and lunch was served we headed out again. The second dive spot for the day was really cool, we were dropped off from the boat and had to swim to the reef, it felt strange not leaving from the beach and being in "open water. The swim was through clear water with a sandy bottom 40-50 feet below, as we swam towards shore the reefs started to appear along with the fish. There were amazing little stand alone reefs and more intense interconnected networks as you got closer to the island and the fish were everywhere, schools of them. I was having major problems with my mask and snorkel, water kept getting in and then my contacts started to shrivel in my eyes. When I was heading to the beach to adjust again I saw something that was big and gray swim by really fast. I thought “oh god it's a shark”, I got Paul's attention and told him I might have saw a shark, he laughed and told me I did not see one. I saw that no one else was frantically leaving the water so I decided to keep on exploring. Soon my mask leaked for the last time and I swam to the zodiac Jai was in watching us in. In the boat I saw that gray thing again, it was a very large fish, I don't remember the name but he was big and fast, these are the some of the same fish you could hear and see eating the reef when snorkeling. A lot of other fish were appearing around the boat, I saw two small squid and when we were getting closer they changed color to look intimidating. With the really clear water I saw more on the zodiac then I could see through my mask. Once Paul and the rest of the boys came back on board and we had a nice dinner everyone started to get ready to go to bed early to sleep since the previous night no one got any. Paul and I slept under a big yellow tarp on the front of the boat with towels and our cloths for blankets. We could see big tropical thunderstorms around but luckily non passed up and thank goodness for warm weather.
No comments:
Post a Comment