Xmas travels part IV...Scuba duper

Among the days spent on Lola imitating sea-cucumbers, we managed to rouse ourselves for a couple of excursion days, including a day on Bikiki Island, a tiny and uninhabited island surrounded by colourful reefs. I also, unexpectedly, spent a day scuba diving. The morning before we left I was a tad apprehensive about the prospect as divers were meant to have at least 100 dives for the particular dive we were doing, whereas I last dived about 7 years ago and have done a grand total of about 7 dives (6 of which were in a lake). But I kept this quiet, and as the three other divers and I sped over the water I felt happily comfortable and excited at the prospect. It was no disappointment. As Stuart, an Aussie with over 200 dives under his belt pointed out afterwards, if I do another 150 dives it’s unlikely I’ll do one that surpasses the two we did today. The second in particular really captured my imagination.

It began with a short walk onto land before we climbed into a dark hole about 2 metres in diameter (see the crap photo) and with some effort manoeuvred head first down the narrow passage into the cold and total darkness. Armed with an underwater flashlight we headed downwards, the passage opening into a wide underwater cavern, before narrowing again until, at it’s lowest point about 35 metres down, it became just a small opening which we squeezed through, clanging our tanks against the rocks. Unlike the others I had no wetsuit and was clad in just my rather unstreamline orange swimshorts, but the adrenaline kept me warm in the cold water. We slowly ascended another narrow chasm and before long we found ourselves heading towards a far-off glint of celestial blue. As we neared, it deepened in hue and intensity, till we reached a large underwater cave and were surrounded by an explosion of blue so deep and bright you could almost inhale it. We lingered a while, enjoying the sensation, before emerging through the cave mouth into the mighty Pacific, finding ourselves still 20 metres below the surface, poking our heads out of a window in a perfectly vertical reef wall that stretched at least another 40 metres below us. The wall was an underwater Eden, thick with colourful coral and fish, and for the rest of the dive we traversed this wall, accompanied by reef sharks (and a hammerhead), an Eagle ray and a turtle.

That evening over a drink in the bar, Tuska, the spearfishermen-turned-divemaster who had led our dive, told me the history of the cave. It had been the Kastom (custom) shark cave of a nearby village till just a few years ago, inhabited by a 4 or 5 metre shark to which they would regularly sacrifice and then feed pigs. But then one day some young men from the village committed a tabu and took females to the island, and the shark had left. Sad as it is for the village in question to lose their shark god, the actions of those randy young men have opened up one hell of a dive for the rest of us.

Anyway. Love to you all and here's to a great 2007 (from a spaka waetman).