Blog 9 ish - cant remember

Forgot the Blog Number

But it is Saturday.  The second weekend on Masig. I am oncall again and have done 4 calls today, but given the fullness of the day I have just had with Jo and the kids, you wouldn’t think that work had entered into the equation.

Late last night I got a fax from the pharmacy on TI to tell me that a plane will arrive today the Plane didn’t come when it was supposed to, but then we are on island time, which means “something-oclock” give or take 2 hours.  It would do my head in if I was back home, but here, island time is so much part of the air we breathe, that it has been difficult to worship the clock or the calendar for that mater.   At around 1 pm (due around 1145) the charter arrived, with the drugs, and I dutifully packed them away in the clinic and hit the reef with my people.

Let me prefix the rest of this blog by telling you that I have dived (SCUBA) all around the pacific.  Jo and I had a honeymoon on Tangalooma where we experienced a introduction to diving.  We both took a holiday to Fiji where we both formalized our interest in diving, and completed our open water certification on the coral gardens of Toberua Resort at the edge of the continental shelf drop off .  We have dived the Queensland coast line, and north and central coasts of NSW.  I have even dived in Port Phillip Bay (Victoria) and caught sea scallops, but the topping on the cake was a friend’s wedding in Vanuatu, where the diving was unbelievable.

Then today happened. 

Armed with just a pair of gloves (Parkers will appreciate that --- in joke), a set of goggles and a snorkel, we swam the low tide reef.  We waded out at 1pm and came onshore 4 hours later, cold (YES!!!) wet but thoroughly exhilarated.  We were swimming 100-150 m from the jetty about which we have blogged, the water was at times waist deep, and at others it was 10 metres, with visibility that was as far as the eye could see.  There was every fish imaginable, Think of the funkiest marine wildlife documentary you have ever seen, or the most amazing aquarium, and this snorkeling blitzed them all.   Now here is my call:  This was the BEST diving I have ever done, with or without SCUBA equipment, and what made it oh so special, was that I had Jo and Ben and Amy right there beside me to experience it.

We took out a fishing reel, and some bait (a risky thing to do in shark infested waters, but we like living on the edge).  We caught numerous reef fish, reeled them out of their coral hidy-holes, and had a close up look at them, then released them unharmed, save for a bit of a sore mouth.  We saw the most amazing clams, starfish, reef sharks, coloured fish, and coral that was all the colours of the rainbow, and more. 

On our way in tonight a nice island family floated past in their boat, and offered us a Crayfish, which we boiled up for entrée.  Our regular RAN has flown off the island till next week, and so when she left, came over with a box of dog food for us to feed ‘Coconut’, and her heart pills, and a bottle of red wine for Jo.  So it is only right that we have red meat tonight hey?  So we sold one of the kids, and the clinic car to finance the purchase of Lam Chops, and tonight we eat red!!!

The perfect end to a perfect day.

So I tend this blog, fully aware of the fact that this is only half as long as my others, but then I have had twice the day that you all have, so it somehow seems fitting.  This place is beyond description, beyond photography, and she is cheapened, by any attempt that we have had to describe her to you.  The blogs that we tender serve to share a glimpse of this paradise, and also to help Jo and I and the kids to remember these amazing experiences, when our memories fade with the years.  I know that we will come home, but after eating fruit from the legendary Wongai tree, we were warned by locals that this means we will never leave…Spooky!!