Well, actually, at recount this morning I find it is now sixty bites I have, not the original staggering forty nine.
We begin the day by playing another match of tennis. Ian won, six straight games. But it wasn't for the want of trying I assure you! We followed through with another match of table tennis. Ian won four games to my two. But at least I won something of not the entire match!
Then I sat in the sun for half an hour and joined Ian on octy watch. On my way out to the coral I had the privilege to swim above a stingray. He caught sight of something and torpedoed away but a little later he circled around again and I swam with him for a little while. Upon reaching octy Ian briefed me on the current situation. He had, after all, already been observing him for over half an hour. It seemed that octy had acquired a friend, another octopus, who had an amazing ability to camouflage himself with the nearby coral block. It took me several minutes to differentiate between the octopus and the coral! I watched for the best part of an hour but the current was strong and the octopuses weren't being very active so I returned to shore to read my book in the sun.
After lunch we ventured a foot into the ocean with our snorkelling gear in the hope that we might see a turtle that allegedly resides near the harbour, but sighting what looked like a sea snake immediately beneath Ian's chest I carefully alerted him to it before he unsettled it into displaying a defensive reaction and we exited the water, somewhat unsettled, as the sea snake swam away parallel to shore [Editors Note: we later discovered that the sea snake was probably a little moray eel].
After that I wasn't comfortable in the water in just bikini so I retired to shore and left Ian swimming away back to octy...
Copyright 2002 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.