Du-dah

No time for yoga this morning, we had to pack a bag and have an early breakfast to be ready for a snorkelling trip leaving at 9am. Usual breakfast of fruit, omelette, fruit bread and coconut jam, and another red bean paste steamed bun….love them!
We headed out on the boat, round the island past the local village on stilts in the sea…lots of very colourful houses each with a small boat pulled up into the stilts out of the water as I imagine many who live here are fishermen or at least need a boat to get to work on the mainland or round at the resorts.
We arrived at the area planned for today’s dive above a coral forest and donned our masks and snorkels. Once I was in the water I realised I was having trouble putting my face under water and didn’t like the feel of the mask stopping me breathing through my nose. I wondered if I’d be able to do it. J was away with most of the others on the boat happily swimming around and looking at everything underneath us (and D&S, in their own gear, were of course leading the way!), but I was thinking I wouldn’t be able to use the snorkel and might resort to just holding my breath and having brief looks. J came over to help and was very reassuring, and I worked out that if I closed my eyes as I was putting my face down I was fine to be underwater and using the snorkel, I just didn’t like the feeling of seeing the water rush up and go over my face. Once I’d cracked that trick I was off!
Amazing to see the coral and all the fish…quite large brightly coloured parrot fish, lots of black and white striped ones, and all the coral which was so many different shapes and colours. I popped my head up and found I was drifting off from the rest of the group so swam back over to them. There started to be talk of reef sharks having been spotted but I couldn’t see any. I did see barracuda, and a sting ray, and lots of sea cucumbers and one huge fat starfish though. At one point I bumped into V who was staying with the guide as she was having trouble with her mask not being tight enough. He explained I needed to look more towards the horizon instead of straight down to see the sharks and when I did I saw one swimming off. Just as well I hadn’t seen the one that V and the guide had seen swimming right under my legs earlier! They were much bigger than we’d expected…one was over 2 metres long….but very exciting to see them. No turtles though, which they’d seen on the trip yesterday. I swam over to J and was delighted to show her that I’d found a Nemo and let her see it too. There were quite a few spiny sea urchins which looked very evil with their long black spines and what looked like three lights shining up at us from their bodies….very surreal looking!
The depth varied from between about a couple of metres to about 5-10m in places, but all felt very accessible and nothing like as scary as I’d feared. B had stayed on the boat and was taking photos and ensuring we all got back on board safely!
We were all elated on the boat journey back…chatting about all we’d seen and whether reef sharks are dangerous or not!
We decided to chill by the pool and beach at the hotel this afternoon, after so much excitement, and lay on shaded sun beds reading our books and dozing…bliss! I went for a couple of swims in the idyllic warm water, enjoying floating and gazing up at the blue skies and then swimming around a bit to explore the length of the beach. We stopped for a drink and to share a portion of chips at one point and a chat with B&J, then more reading and dozing. On our way back to the villa we chatted to H&G that we’d met at the yoga and they said we could see more clownfish at the coral garden near the jetty, so we went and borrowed the snorkelling gear again and spent a while looking for them. We found quite a few more black and white striped small and large fish but no Nemos….
Slogged back up the hill, looking yet again like scarecrows with our hair having been dipped in the sea too many times, and had showers and got changed for a sunset cruise. It was a much nicer boat than we expected, and there was only J&B and us, a couple from Nottingham who we’d not met before, and D&S who had been snorkelling with us this morning. It was gorgeous…what a way to end this part of the holiday! We had drinks on tap, some lovely prawn, curried chicken and fish pate canapés, and one of the crew danced around the boat taking lots of photos of us. Once we’d reached a good viewpoint we waited for the sun to drop and it was stunning….quite emotional to see the huge orange ball sink into the sea as we all looked on.
Once that was done it was back to the drinks, and singing as many songs as we could remember with the word ‘sun’ or ‘sunshine’ in the lyrics. What a laugh! B&J have been such fun, we’ll definitely keep in touch with them and hope to met up when they do a camper van trip round the west of Scotland in May….
When we arrived back at the jetty we wandered over to the restaurant to share some desserts (mango sago, chocolate brownie, coconut cake and burnt basque cheesecake)….delicious! More chat about KL, cricket, football, chocolate and next trips.
We were all getting tired and so headed to our villas….that hill over to our villa is a killer when we’re tired! I had to go to bed straight away but V started on her packing. I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow….