18
Location: Cairns
Today, we got to sleep in until a pleasant 5:45 a.m., when the few members of our group who actually got up were greeted by the harsh winds of a frigid morning. Out of our group of 13, only 4 of us stumbled on deck: Amanda, Steph, Carter, and I. Carter. I were questioning our decision to get into the water as we felt the cold wind on our faces and heard the waves crash against the boat. What made it worse was that during the night, my towel had been claimed by the sea after being carried away by a gust of wind. Carter had had enough with the cold and decided not to dive, but I decided I might as well do it, seeing as I was already awake. Luckily, the water was warmer than the air above, allowing us to dive without becoming icicles. The early morning dive took place during the sunrise, allowing us to see the transition between night and day in the coral habitat. I’d say the coolest thing we saw on the dive was either the massive school of bumphead parrotfish swimming past us in the distance or the 5-foot shark resting on the sandy bottom towards the end of the dive. If it wasn’t cold before the dive, it definitely was once we surfaced and we were exposed to the elements while also soaked in water. After the cold dive, we joined the rest of our group inside for a cozy breakfast and for the announcement from our captain, which informed us that one of the dinghies had broken, meaning that the boat would be unable to leave the current dive site. I did not do the second dive as I had already dived the spot multiple times now, but I can say that the conditions from the morning kept strong for the whole day. For the final dive of the trip, I went in a group of just Jonah and myself, and I made the executive decision not to take it seriously whatsoever; this involved the first step of stealing an apple from the kitchen and storing it in my BCD pocket. I decided that diving was a bit too exerting for me, so I proceeded to take off my fins, sit on the sand, and take a few bites out of the apple I brought with us.
Eating an apple underwater is salty, to say the least, but I thought, what better time to teach Jonah how to eat something underwater than underwater, where we can’t talk. Long story short, Jonah didn’t drown mostly and now has a story to tell everyone about “eating” an apple underwater. After we finished our snack, I realized that lying on the ocean floor close behind me was a purple towel. Seeing this gave me hope that other lost items could be recovered, causing me to change the dive into a search and recovery mission. In total, we found four lost items: Lila’s purple towel, Roman’s underwear, a microfiber cloth with no owner, and my blue towel. So don’t worry, Mom, I only lost three things, not four. We saw a Moray eel of unknown species, so I deemed the dive a success, and we surfaced.
I have started to realize the length of this blog, so I will now speed through the rest of the day, so do your best to comprehend. We began our 3-hour drive back to port, where Roman nearly threw up multiple times, which was kinda funny watching because he managed to do everything to make himself feel worse, such as looking down and not looking at the horizon no matter how many times we pleaded with him not to. We arrived at the port and got on shuttles to gather our large bags and be dropped off back at our hotel, where every one of us enjoyed a long, hot shower after spending three days on the dive boat. We enjoyed a lazy afternoon before gathering to head for the Night Market. The Night Market is a collection of food shops and stands selling assortments of items, including a hot sauce stand where I purchased two different bottles, which I will force my brother to try. Just as an early warning, I was not the only one who purchased hot sauce, and I definitely did not purchase the strongest hot sauce, so if the ghost pepper sounds familiar to anyone in Jonah and Carter’s family, good luck. We ate dinner in a pub with some of the other people who were onboard the dive boat, including the chef on board and one of the instructors. I’ll wrap it up now, but finish with the fact that Sky is better than Lila at darts.