Commodore
April 15, 2023

Saturday 15 April – the Wall of Sharks

The girls and Rowan had to be at the dive centre at 7:30 am while I had a luxurious lie in and quiet time on the boat on my own, I’ve missed the boat getting certified to dive and my ears are too funky to risk it. I had just finished breakfast when they were back drenched! The wind has picked up and the current and waves have dramatically increased. That didn’t affect the dive, they all thoroughly enjoyed hanging onto a ledge and looking down onto hundreds of sharks just swirling slowly up and down . Apparently the sharks go down there to this spot to restore their oxygen which gets depleted in the shallower water inside the atoll. It sounded spectacular.

Rowan wondered whether we should move on as the on shore wind was picking up, but we had booked to go to the hotel for dinner with another boat, they were staying put, plus the big Argentinian Patchamama Catamaran, so we decided to stay. Rowan and I went out to look at snorkelling at the far end of the passage where we hadn’t been, but it was a strong current and plenty of choppy waves in the wind, so we finally gave up.

Late afternoon the little German monohull next to us on a mooring ball were struggling to attach a second rope, so Rowan went to help them with the snuba. Very sensible of them as there is a wreck of a boat in front of us that was on a mooring ball and the rope snapped while they were off the boat! The German couple came round later to thank us, both consultants working remotely, what a lifestyle to choose. They arranged to do a yoga/exercise class on the beach with the girls in the morning. We cut short their visit as it is dark by 6:15pm and we needed to get to the little restaurant. With the wind picked up and waves being kicked up by the current as well we had a very wet trip in, I was very pleased to have my rain poncho on. Quite hairy going in avoiding all the low coral water.

Pachamama were there for supper too and it was a fun gathering with lots of young kids. The food was great and so nice to have something different, they did some excellent veggie food for the girls too, including very good pizza. With the wind blowing, and a down pour while we ate, we did not hang about and by 8:30 pm in pitch dark we headed back to PolePole. Somehow we lost our torch and had to follow Pachamama’s huge dinghy out. It was a rather terrifying trip back to PolePole, as waves were breaking all around us and coming into the boat. I had a tiny back up torch but we were grateful to be able to follow the other dinghy which was heavily laden, with their two crew and friends on board with their two kids. No life jackets anywhere, all a little crazy, but we made it back safely thank god. As we were boarding PolePole we managed to drop our little torch in the water and it sped off into the darkness, thank goodness we were home!