Day 4, fingers crossed. Breakfast is at 7:20 then the long walk to the dive centre to see if the port is open today. I check the weather and the wind is mere 9km per hour but it looks like it is supposed to pick up as the day goes on. The forecast is for strong winds till the end of the week. Oh poo. We have to play the dive game day by day. Unfortunate because there is not much else that Debbie and I are interested in doing here on the island.
Port is closed. Just as we leave the shop to head back to the hotel a cruise ship heads for the dock. It is moving slow so we decide to double time it to the big dock and watch as the ants emerge from the bowels of the ship. It took some time but they started to march down the gang plank and along the dock marching to the platz.
The wind is still blowing but we keep our hopes up. If it dies down enough we will be able to dive this afternoon.
The email arrives at 11am. The port is open, we will be diving at 12.30. It is hurry up and wait. The other folks that are to dive with us are told 1pm. At 1 we leave.
The waves are still quite high and the boat ride is rough but we make it to the dive site in good time. B wants to see some turtles. Pumba says how many. B says 5. 5 it is, the dive is relatively short but we see 5 turtles of varying size engaged in different activities.
For good measure Pumba picks out a splendid toad fish. A shy fish, coloured with blue and grey stripes, that spends all day in a hole with only its head visible.
The second dive was also short because our surface interval was only 48 minutes. This time Debbie found a toad fish on her own. It is amazing how one can find things once one knows what to look for.
‘Travel mode’ being the key to not getting excited about cancelled dive days. As we leave on a trip Debbie whispers to me ‘travel mode’. At that time I am supposed to take a deep breath, relax and go with what happens. We cannot do anything about the weather. When we learn that the dive is cancelled we return to the hotel, pick up our books and read. There is a chance the same will happen tomorrow but we have 5 more days left and we will dive again.
