Did the tagline get you to click? Well before I get into that I want to start with an awesome morning. What made it awesome? Around 10am I noticed an outrigger with four ladies and a boy paddling towards us. Upon their arrival, they presented a bag to us with bananas and coconuts in it as a gift. How incredible for them to come out all this way and to bring a gift. We invited them aboard and Roxy started with a tour of the boat before we all settled into the saloon.
It was a fun conversation learning about their families, how they were related, and whatnot. As the conversation developed it came out that one of the younger ladies had recently finished university in Port Vila so it was fun talking about different places we all had visited. Somewhere along the line out came phones and tablets to show pictures. Experiences like this one continue to open my eyes to the world and to reinforce in me how lucky I have been. To be born in the US, to have those opportunities and the successes that luck gave to me. These ladies have not seen half of what we have seen in THEIR home country. They were engrossed with pictures of the volcano in Tanna. I am doing a terrible job putting into words how impactful our time together was, but it was truly very special. All good things must come to an end and the wind had pipped up to a pretty good blow. A plan was hatched for the two young ladies to paddle the outrigger back while everyone else would go in the dinghy. Carl ran them in to shore and after five minutes it was clear the paddling was not working, back to the boat and once Carl returned, he and I towed them to shore. Oh were they appreciative of the tow.
Ready for the trauma? After yesterday’s epic snorkel we were excited to snorkel the more well known Dixon reef today. A few start and stops waiting for a good stretch of sun before we dinghied to the reef. We found a solid, or so we thought, place to tie the dinghy and headed off. Immediately it did not start as strong as yesterday’s reef. We did find some interesting walls with coral and some fish. And a number of large Parrot and Groupers as we continued to the breaking waves on the western edge. Diligently checking the dinghy as we went. A third of a mile we reach the crashers and swam across the reef to the south. The dinghy didn’t look quite right but Carl was sure it was okay. We continued on. Checking a few more times before I was convinced it was drifting. Fuck. We swam towards the dinghy and about half way there it was clear it was a long way from where we tied it up. We swam on and a bit later I hollered to Carl that we needed to swim back to Sky Pond, a mile plus away. He was convinced he could recover it and swam on. I called a second time and reiterated the need to leave the dinghy which was being blown out to sea. He was determined and swam on towards it leaving me on the reef.
This was bad. Really bad. My concern was if he couldn’t get the dinghy or the current kept him from returning to the reef (where we could stand if needed). I began the swim to Sky Pond. Reaching the end of the reef, about a third of a mile, I realized that shore was closer, so I changed directions. I could see the large school house so I aimed for that. It a slow slog with rolling white capped waves constantly washing over me and a current in the wrong direction. In my mind was, what to do when I get to shore? Do I get a long boat back to Sky Pond? Do I take a long boat to look for the dinghy? Could I find Carl by going from the dinghy back to the reef? If Carl was lost what happens? Do I help Roxy sell the boat in Vanuatu? It was not good.
The swim took me over deep water, then over a smaller reef, and back over deeper water. It was around the mid-point of this leg where I looked down and saw a very, very large shark. I thought, whelp this might be the end if it thinks I’m food. It looked like a Nurse shark. Are they aggressive? I think that is what I heard before. Nothing I could do but swim on. Thankfully it was not interested in me. I still had about a third of the way to go. I wasn’t tired so much as it was taking a very long time which made recovery of the dinghy and Carl more difficult. There was a strange stretch where there were wavy ribbons of lines along the bottom, sometimes two somewhat parallel to each other. Sometimes three. All roughly 100 meters in length and maybe 10cm across starting and stopping at different points. My best guess that they are some sort of coral. Finally, the reef that extends from the shore was beneath me and the next challenge was not brushing my hands or legs on the coral. I made it to the beach after the nearly one-mile swim. I couldn’t see the dinghy but I started waving my arms above my head while walking into the village. A few minutes later I spotted the dinghy which looked to be near the reef. That was a relief. I kept walking and eventually I could see the dinghy was under power. A minute later headed my direction. Whew.
Back aboard Sky Pond there was a very long, drawn out discussion about what had happened. I’ll leave it that it was quite traumatic for myself and Roxy (she could see the dinghy floating away and later on could see that I was not in the dinghy but finally she could see my bright green dive shirt when I reached the beach).
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