It was a day where rain clouds would come and go, it was late in the day and we had just arrived at a renowned anchorage - Butterfly Bay. There was a window of opportunity where the sun had overpowered the clouds and we had glorious sunshine lighting up the reef that was a few hundred meters from our boat. Krissy, Hugh and I quickly grabbed our snorkel gear and plunged into the water. The chill sucked the air from my lungs and stopped the blood in my veins, but splashing about as if I am struggling for survival (also known as my version of freestyle) quickly got the blood flowing once again.
Paddling over to the reef and constantly adjusting my snorkel gear, I finally got it fitted. The visibility was not great, so we were on top of the reef before we realised it, and in sea life utopia. There were hundreds of different types and colours of coral, there were sea cucumbers, big fish, small fish and every colour of the rainbow was represented. It was fantastic and something that we had been waiting for! Hugh saw a huge turtle slowly gliding through the water and tipping its body to turn left and right.
I started to get a bit chilly and the sun was disappearing behind clouds, while the wind whipped across the top of the water. I was about to go back to the boat when I saw what looked like a tree that had fallen into the water, but as I looked closer I could see that it was an enormous and complicated section of coral with fluro coloured tips. I was just about to tell Krissy and Hugh about it, when I saw jaws slowly skimming across the sea floor, less than 2m away from where Krissy and I were swimming. I watched it slowly make its way and realised that it was not interested in me or Krissy and was just out looking for some more appropriately sized dinner. I could say that he was 3m long and stared at me with his teeth barred while whipping his tail around, but he was a small reef shark, dark grey in colour and about 1m long. It was quite a beautiful animal, simply getting about its neighbourhood. I looked over and Krissy was asking me with her eyes if I saw it too. I came to the surface and was convinced that it was not interested in us, so we continued to paddle around for a little while, but I thought I should let Hugh know, so that he didn't accidentally step on it or get in the middle between the shark and its preferred dinner.
Turns out Hugh thought we were joking and was quite disappointed that he didn't get to see it either. I am sure that we will see jaws, and we can only hope that we see him in a docile and non-threatening manner!
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| JAWS! |
9/6/2013
'snorkel cam ' would be the way to go !
ReplyDeletenext time you're mainland perhaps !!