A large moray eel.
Hulhihoo Reef.
This little sandbar disappeared with the tide.
A heron.
John and I explore the island.
Our dinner on the beach.
Monday, February 19th.
After breakfast we sailed for about a half hour to a
reef that Aman called the best he’d been on. They moored our boat and took us
up wind in the runabout boat. We got in the water and basically floated with
the current back to the boat. John and I swam together at the back taking our
time. We saw a large moray eel and a large pink lobster, as well as some more anemone
with clown fish. The reef did look pretty good with some soft corals. What I
especially liked was the steep drop off from the coral to bottom about fifteen
or twenty metres below. I kept looking for larger fish lurking down there, but
no such luck.
Then we sailed a bit more to a little sandbar island
and moored there. I put my old camera inside the dry bag and swam to the island
with it above water. When we got there, we walked along a little sandbar that
jutted out from the island and took some nice photos. I walked around the
island a bit but discovered that it was covered in litter. Apparently, this is
one of the islands that was abandoned after the tsunami and locals don’t clean
up their picnic messes. When we went back John had a nap and I snorkelled along
the reef around the island. Again, there were lots of beautiful fish to see.
We had lunch there too. Then we left and motored for another
45 minutes to our mooring place for the night. It is windier here and there is
a pretty strong current between the islands, so they tied the boat three ways,
left, centre and right. John went for a swim to the nearest island. I wanted to
take my camera, so I waited for the shuttle boat. They took all of us there and
we walked around for about an hour, before they took us back. We found out that
the crew was organizing a dinner for us on the island. The chef had cooked
everything and put it under aluminium and the rest of the crew had set up a
little eating area for us. After dark they came back to the boat to get us.
When we got there, we were surprised by the creativity of the crew. They had
made a little eating area complete with candles in plastic bottles, other
candles in cans in holes with a palm frond sticking out. There was a table made
of sand and covered with a big board from the boat and surrounding by a moat
and sand seats. There was a long serving table and we helped ourselves buffet
style to chicken, pizza, fish, salad, kabas, cooked tomatoes, onions and
eggplant. There were four desserts too, two different custards, a sticky pie
and fruit salad. It was a nice setting and great atmosphere. Too bad about the
Chinese wedding happening beside us, and their silliness of throwing each other
in the sea, but thankfully they left and didn’t spoil our whole evening.
After we finished eating I wandered off along the
beach in the dark, enjoying the waves, the wind, the trees, the stars, the
crescent moon and the solitude. Really amazing. The others were busy
discovering the bioluminescent algae.
At 9:30 we headed
back to the back for the night.
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