new title

We have a late start today as we're taking advice to skip the breakfast dive. Good advice too as the visibility was poor. On the other hand I was up only half and hour later than usual as the Japanese weren't silent in preparing to dive.

The lunchtime dive, OK the evening dive, was very good. We started off with a [hawksbill] turtle apparently munching on coral then a Napoleon fish -- a big (over a metre long and almost as tall) ugly fish. Then we hauled ourselves across the reef to hang on dearly in the current and see grey reef sharks patroling (and another Napoleonfish watching both us and the sharks).

Then we had a night dive. Just Tomel, Helen and I (and Imthi!), torches and a nightstick courtesy of the Israeli army. The idea was to drift along a "house reef" and see what we could see. In practice, for the first ten minutes we hurtled along the reef completely out of control -- I couldn't tell my depth as I couldn't shine my torch on my computer without all the LCD segments lighting up which made it pointless. If you get separated you can't see the others so I [both] went 5m below our target maximum depth and surfaced all whilst rushing [1-2m away from and] past a rock face without knowing when a protuberance might appear and squish us. It was quite scary.

Then suddenly we stopped -- I have no idea why, maybe we passed a corner, I don't know. After that it became a very good dive. Seeing the coral in bloom, jacks chasing each other, shrinps, lion fish and parrotfish asleep.

Imthi, our instructor, has said it will cost US$ 180 to get the PADI Advanced Open Water, though he has admitted it will slightly cover his back for letting us "push the envelope" for divers of our experience. We'll have to think about it.

This evening we have some traditional Maldivian food for dinner which is very nice. The tables and bar are garlanded, the eating table in particular is weighed down with lines of flower heads. Very nicely done, indeed. After dinner the local Maldivian drums turn up for a song and dance routine. Now, I would never claim to be able to hold a tune myself but this traditional Maldivian music seems to be a bit of a shocker. Three guys bang away on drums (budubari - big drums) with a rythym this this white guy ain't got (and doesn't want) whilst the rest of the gang clap at a different rate to both the drums and each other then start hollering out the words. Then the drummers change the beat. I've committed a minute of this to camera. On the other hand, the Maldivians love it and can't wait to dance (read bounce/jump/hop/whatever whilst clapping and hooting in time with, um, nobody, not even themselves).

It says much for the Japanese psyche, perhaps from their love of the ultimate I-don't-care-what-you-think medium, karaoke, that this uncoordinated jumple of sounds, words and movement is just their cup of tea and the floor becomes thick with excitable inscrutable ones. Tomel, Helen and I limp around at the back. Afterwards Imthi is quite chatty about the ways of the Maldivians.

The boat does start getting a bit wobbly [unrelated to the dancing] even though it is anchored in a natural harbour.

Blue Shark Two, anchored at N3.99528 E72.94630 Elev. 3m.

PS. Plankton is pretty vicious stuff. When we've been snorkelling we've felt something like pin pricks even through T-shirts. One guy had something like nettle stings on his neck and now I have a very itchy nettle sting on my arm and the 2cm around has gone red and swollen up from the venom. And you can't even see them!