Day Six

08/04/2005

I must have eaten something that disagreed with me one of these last few days, because I spent most of last night in the loo. Today I’m just a touch naseous. We did a shallow sort of reef dive today and a chimmney dive with Gillain first off, and then stopped by this place called Parrot Tree for coffee and a muffin (we had Gatorade too, for hydration J). Josh and me held the boat up for a minute or two because we were off taking pictures. Parrot Tree was a cute little rich touristy place, but very beautiful, despite that. After Parrot Tree, we headed off for sandy, shallower water and a wreck named the Prince Albert. It was a smaller boat, just barely to be considered a ship, really. I went into the below decks and then out the next portal, not being very comfortable with it yet, and then under the way on the end of the boat. I was more comfortable the second run through, but I still didn’t like it as much as just drifting the reefs. Mark found us another seahorse and then a camouflaged ugly something or other on the first dive. Gillian took me down for some fin-pivoting/hovering/ buoyancy exercises before she would let me do the wreck, so I was perhaps much better prepared when the time actually came and she pointed at me to descend into the hull. After that, we came back to Palmetto while Josh had some more Safety Cert. Training (lost diver retrieval, I think). I ended up falling asleep in the hammock again after reading the chapter in the PADI book about night diving. Aellen ( a very pretty woman from somewhere in Europe, Scandinavia, I think) was our dive master for that dive and my dive-buddy since I am the rookie. We all got flashlights and headed out of the bay in the Moya. The water was very choppy, but it was lovely to be out at sea just as the sun was setting. There were hundreds of gigantic sea-urchins out, starfish (brittle stars, to be exact) and fish one doesn’t normally see during the day. The colors were much more vivid by torch-light then they were during the day as well. Aellen pointed out a small eel poking its head out of its’ burrow. Small swarming sea-lice came around our lights in clouds at one point. Bit the hell out of my wrist, but other then that everything left us pretty much alone. A lot of the fish were asleep as well, and it was quite amusing to see small parrot fish snoozing in the crevasse as we went by. I did a bit of underwater navigation so that Aellen can sign off on my Advanced Open Water Diver course as one of my ‘elective’ dives. Shauna and Scott did a bit of that as well. We caught a fish sandwich here at the clubhouse before we headed out for tonight’s dive, so I wasn’t hungry when I heaved myself on deck about 45 minutes later. The sea was rough, so I took a bit of water but I managed to get on-board fine. I did, however, have a rather sneaky and unexpected bout of mild sea-sickness on the way back, but was ok once I’d gotten back on the shore and had a cat mildly assault me for an ear-rub. It’s odd to have someone make my bed for me everyday, but I don’t mind J. there is only sheets on the bed, but I don’t expect they often get cold-blooded gringos like myself here. It’s lovely to wake up at about 4 in the morning and be chilly. I think we’re eating here tomorrow, the wife of the owner here told us that there would be a Jamaican band here tomorrow night and an Italian fiddle/violin player the night after that. Shauna apparently passed her ’snorkel-test’ quite well and dove with us this morning , but claims to remember nothing of the night before. Scott seconds that, but remembers nothing himself either. The only person able to give a relatively clear version of events is Aellen, who thinks the whole thing hysterical. I’m exhausted, but quite happy.