The Coral Isles – day six

As I wrote this, I am sitting back at my desktop in Sydney. Man, that went quick.
Today, we anchored at Wala, a really small island in the Vanuatu group, measuring somewhere around 1000 metres squared.
We had been advised that the snorkeling on offer both here, and at Champagne Bay (where we’ll be tomorrow), would be the best we’d experience on this trip. Hence our decision to buy some gear yesterday.
After wandering the local beach market place, and grabbing a few shots of the locals, I decided it was time to join Cath and Max in the water.
We snorkeled around the area of the beach where we’d left our stuff, and what we saw was ok, but not mind-blowing.
After a while, I said to Cath that I was going to wander up to the other end of the beach near the rocky point I could see, and see if the snorkeling was any more promising there.
As I headed that way, I passed a couple, masks and snorkels in hand, who were returning from that direction, so I asked them what the snorkeling had been like.
The guy told me “Head out straight off the point. It’s amazing.”
So, I swam out there and the view truly was spectacular. In hindsight, I wish I’d had one of those little disposable underwater film cameras. The quantity and variety of coral was unlike anything I had ever witnessed first hand. It was like something out of a documentary.
And the fish!
Same deal.
More types and colours than I had ever seen.
I could even see clown fish (Finding Nemo, anyone?) in their natural habitat.
So, I headed back in, walked back down the beach and told Cath (Max was out in the water playing with one of his new-found friends from onboard the ship) to come and check this out.
So, we both walked back up the beach, and swam out to where I had previously been.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I go snorkeling, I don’t settle for just flapping along on the surface. I like to take a huge breath and duckdive down and actually swim amongst the fish and coral.
So, I was doing this over and over again, diving down to look closely at the coral and the fish, and returning to the surface when I felt the need to breathe again.
On one occasion, I had dived down to about 12 feet and was approaching a big piece of plate coral. I happened to look up to my left to where I could see Cath paddling along on the surface.
So, what do you do in an instance like this?
Naturally, you roll over to wave, right?
Yeah, right.
That’s when you find out the hard way that distances underwater are not what they appear to be!
As I’ve rolled my body by tucking my right shoulder down and under my chest, I’ve made contact with the plate coral! And let me tell you, that stuff might LOOK soft and cuddly, but it aint! It’s like course grade sandpaper which does not bend!
The impact was hard enough that Cath said later on that she HEARD it, from where she was 12 feet above me on the surface!
For me, it caught me by surprise so badly (and the pain was excruciating), that I inhaled a mouthful of water through my snorkel. Thankfully I didn’t swallow it, but rather spat it back out straight away as I made a beeline for the surface.
Upon breaching the surface, I took a huge gulp of air, and looked around at my shoulder to see that there was a reasonable quantity of blood now pouring from the wound.
Great.
I’m in open water, and I’m bleeding.
Bring on the feeding frenzy any time now.
I decided it was probably a good time for Cath and I to get out of the water.
Once back on dry land, I made my way to the ship’s nurse, who was positioned at the (beach) end of the jetty, ready to cater to such emergencies.
She cleaned the wounds out with alcohol wipes (shoulder, elbow and outside of my right hand) and then smothered them in iodine.
Yeeee-oooooow!
Crap, if it didn’t hurt enough before, it sure as hell does now!
Anyway, we decided that that was all the excitement we needed for one day, so we returned to the ship shortly thereafter.
Perhaps the coral at Champagne Bay will be less aggressive towards me!

Take me to: <- Day five | Day seven ->