The sun cast across deep dark aquamarine sea. A clean Belgian owned boat of avidly active foreigners, so ready to dive, and sun browned Indonesian divemasters. I'm not sure of the best word to describe the crimson goldfish-like fish at Batu Bolong. Hordes? A flood? Drifting clouds? And at Manta Point, those straight-edge cut black wraiths passing suddenly below, huge and alien. I dive and we cover a coral garden with drifts of fish, projecting crags of rock and coral, thin garden eels poking up from the sand. Clouds of tiny transparent fish with electric blue hearts and heads. Orange black-tipped fish that hug close about a coral tower, flicking back inwards and outwards again like tongues of flame, fire disintegrated into separate components moving in sync. On the third dive, mostly flat fish, perfectly disguised till they rill themselves away. Fourth dive, early morning stroll in the coral garden. Little lionfish, their spines held stiffly away from their bodies like unforgiving demands of a Brazilian parade costume. A nudibranch, the nudibranch I once painted, like a stretchy-gum pull of black stripe white edge yellow edging blue. My favourite thing I saw, old friend. Big silent groupers and sweetlips further down. The sea and all its life. Ah, the second dive and the mantas, of course. They approach in gangs. THey are not as thin nor paper-like as they appear, when in person they are cuboid-rhombuses, big, white, sizeable. The fifth dive, a comical disaster. The current streams at times, ifting us up and outwards, horizontal. I was annoyed initially by the profferred hand, I am a stubborn person, I think I know how to swim in scuba. Now, linking arms become an urgent necessity. I wonder if someone is dynamite fishing nearby, these shockwaves that rush and stream us like lifted ribbons. The force plasters us against the wall and brings us into contact with anemones, which raise hand-stinging bumps on my hands. Like touching a jelly nettle. Sixth dive, a current sweeps us along a wall that rushes past, too fast to appreciate.
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AuthorNot quite a blog, but things that I have written. Please note - these writings are unedited, for the purposes of flexing my fingers, and no doubt contain grammatical errors and carelessness of expression I wouldn't allow in professional writing. Categories
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