As most of my readers will know, I’ve been fortunate enough to have travelled a fair bit. So when I comment on today being another day in paradise, it’s from the perspective of having sailed in Antigua, taught scuba diving in South Africa, and skiied in the Rocky Mountains.

For both Lu and I, this is our first venture to any of the islands of Melanesia. To be fair, my expectations were high, but all of them met with aplomb.

We’d set our alarms for 6:30, so we could breakfast at 7, and be ready for the dive tour at 8. Actually we both woke a lot earlier, and just enjoyed the peace that comes from gentle surf in the distance. Breakfast was interesting, it’s going to take a while to get used to the pace here. Some would call it laconic, or laid back. But just one day into a week-end break, we were still attuned to our Sydney sensibilities and struggled to “go with the flow.” By this evening, that wasn’t a problem.

Then it was “sign your life away” diving disclaimers, kit up and hop on the dive boat. Actually Mel, the chap who runs the dive operation, arrived late, and even so we were giant striding before 9:15. That’s after signing up, briefing, swapping the high pressure hose on both our regs so we could use a dive computer, carrying the kit to the boat, and boating out to the dive site.

Our guide for the first dive, in “Gotham City” (so named because of the bat fish that live there) was Donald. The dive itself was absolutely spectacular. Everything those dive videos promised, in spades and then some. The water was a 25m+ crystal azure, a balmy 28C, with absolutely no current, surge or anything else untoward that would upset a perfect dive. We free descended to about 9m, then headed off around the reef, gradually deepening the dive to about 25m. Somewhere at the 16m mark, for the first time in 17 years of diving, I couldn’t equalise my left ear. I was ok at 16m, but just couldn’t go 30cm deeper. So I just floated above Lu and Don at 16m, trying to equalise, until suddenly I managed to squeeze some air through. I didn’t have any problem for the rest of the dives, just those 4 or so minutes.

Lu cramped up towards the end of the dive. Essentially because she hadn’t clipped her fins on properly, so the straps kept coming loose. The combo of Lu trying to fin without losing her fins, and repeatedly tightening the strap just caused her to seize up. But apart from that, and some buoyancy issues, she too had a great dive for her first time in about 6 years.

The life on the reef is prolific, no really big stuff (turtles, rays, groupers etc) but plenty of Triggers, Anemone fish, Butterflies, Wrasse and the odd Angelfish. Together with the great conditions, it was hard to continue following our Dive Guide. I was all for just hovering in one place the entire dive, and enjoying the teeming abundance.

Before I knew it we were back on the line and in the boat ready to head back to our Hideaway. Next up, Dive two at the wreck of the mighty “Bonzer”

R42