As my boyfriend and I relaxed and read books this morning, he suddenly broke the quiet by asking, "What do you want to do today?" And for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I told him, "Why don't we take the pontoon boat out?" So, that's what we did. We packed a cooler with egg salad sandwiches, fruit, water, and Pringles, loaded the boat with our snorkel and dive gear and headed off. We stopped early on to check out some of the "debris" near the islands a short way from Roi. It was super low tide, and we had been told there was a tank in the water a couple of islands away that you could spot at low tide because it's turret sticks up out of the water. After a couple of false alarms, we found something, so we anchored as close in as we could without hitting coral, donned our fins and masks and jumped it. As we approached, the coral got heavier and heavier, and the water got shallower and shallower. We had to literally crawl across the bottom to get close to the "debris" near shore, watching out for our exposed body parts as the coral in the area was quite sharp and dangerous if you get cut. It was a tank, but I think a Japanese one instead of American as we originally expected. Most of it was either gone or buried so far in the sand you couldn't see it anymore, but it was definitely a tank. Nearby, we also discovered what we think might have been cargo cars for the railway between islands that the Japanese built during the war so many years ago. It's amazing to think of how they built everything they did back in the 1940's way out in the middle of nowhere!
Next, we headed a little further down for a dive. The coral in the spot we ended up reminded me of coral from the animated kids' movie "The Little Mermaid." Remember how it rises up in flat flower like platforms where the creatures and mermaids stand and play instruments from while underwater? Well, that's what it looked like in this particular spot. Pink tabletop corals rose above and all around us like castles of coral. you could really believe there was a royal world of kings and princesses down there when gliding past the colorful and plentiful fish of the Pacific. At one point, we even found a lazy turtle, camouflaged against the coral head waiting for us to leave, so he could move on or get back to whatever he was doing before we interrupted him. We took a full hour down there, and I barely got chilled, which is unusual for me. It was a relaxing dive with lots of sightseeing, including the little cleaner fish that swam around and around my boyfriend's bare arm hairs, trying to clean them. : )
Finally, we warmed back up on the surface with our food and the sun surrounding us. It was so quiet and peaceful out on the water, even further away from the rest of the world. It's been too long since I was out there. It was a good way to spend the day!
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