Diving... with death!

Fiji is hot. I know it's cold back home, but I am cooking alive over here. Anyways, what have I been doing? Well "This week I have been mostly doing diving. I did 2 dives yesterday and 2 today, let me tell you all about them.

Yesterday I went out to the Mamanuca Islands off of the West Coast of the main island of Fiji. The first place we stopped was called Seven Sisters, it is a collections of reefs out amongst the islands. We got down and saw some great tropical fish, I still get amazed at how bright the colours are. What was special for me about this dive was that I saw an octopus for the first time. It was hiding amongst some coral and as we got closer to look at him, he backed away and changed colour making it tough to see him. We saw angelfish, triggerfish and my current favourite, the parrot fish. The second dive didn't go too well for me. I got down to depth at Rainbow Reef and started swimming around. We got down to about 15 metres and all was going well until I started to hear a noise behind my head. I pointed at it to someone I was diving with and they couldn't see a problem. After a few more seconds I realised why. The noise was the air escaping from the tank on my back and Anders couldn't see it because it was mixing with my bubbles. I swam over to the dive master and started to make the "There's something with... my tank" signals. Before I could finish he'd worked it out and was pulling my up to the surface with his spare regulator in my mouth. By the time I got to the boat I was completely out of air. It was pretty hair-raising, but above all it was disappointing as I had my bouyancy perfect so whilst I was diving I felt completely weightless. It turned out that the O-ring on the tank wasn't in properly and must have blown out when I got deeper because of the pressure. Not something that should really happen, but the dive master reacted right and I'm all safe and sound.

Because of the problems I had yesterday the company let me do 2 dives today for $75 which is a total bargain. Despite the risk to my life, I decided to go again. Our first site was the sight of a crashed B-26 bomber. There's not all that much of it left (it must have been pretty scattered), but the wing was clearly identifiable and as we swam around the reef we saw the wheel and steering column which have become part of the reef. I got lucky again today as over the 2 dives we saw a whitetip reef shark sleeping under some coral, I woke him up and he looked pissed off. We also saw cuttlefish and we played with some clownfish who swam around our fingers as we waved them in the coral. The boss at the dive centre has also told me that if I want, they will let me dive again at a discounted rate (not as cheap as before mind) if I want to come again. I have decided to leave it a couple of days, as I had a bit of trouble equalising my ears this morning. Rest assured, I'll let you know if I go again.

Apart from that Fiji is hot and there isn't all that much to do where I am apart from sit by the pool, play cards and read. The people are really good fun and are pretty laid back. They didn't seem to mind when we used the pool cleaner pole to try and knock down coconuts. I'll probably head into town tomorrow as there isn't a bank near here and because I didn't book my room again, I'm stuck on the floor of the travel shop for tomorrow night. D'OH! At least it's only $8.