Diving and Karaoke

……Friday 7th August….. Today was our promised (to us) dive day and we were a little apprehensive as we haven’t dived for a good while. Peter’s octopus (auxiliary air supply) has broken and is not good to have damaged kit, we just hope we don’t need it. It’s another glorious morning as, after breakfast, we struggle once more into our wetsuits. We now have some blistered and raw fingertips, from battling with those bloody suits. Anyway, on to the boat with 11 other divers and out to the reef. We had a lovely dive, carried along the reef wall on a steady drift. Just the odd panicky moment when the current changed direction but no real worries. A nice 40 minute dive then a scramble up the boat ladder having first to remove our fins under water, a tricky manoeuvre, the adrenalin rush over. We saw some very nice coral, lots of coloured fish which we identified later from our charts and a super sting ray. Back off the boat we are just in time for lunch before writing up our dive log book.
The boys have gained in confidence after Grandad and Granny Jane took them out snorkelling yesterday and this morning they went on their own and saw a lemon shark. They saw 2 more sharks but from the safety of the sunset deck, which is the best place to view sharks. We had a dose of sunshine later in the afternoon plus a beer or two and now it’s time for dinner, three meals a day we are not used to! The evenings entertainment was a little different, Robbie and Grandad were keen to watch live coverage of the first days play in the test match. Fox TV Sports is the only contact with the outside world and in the bar where the TV is it is karaoke night! At the start of the karaoke and with England committing suicide at cricket, we were having to listen to a tone deaf Frenchman singing pop and rock. Peter was just about to cut his throat when the Japanese got up to sing. Indescribable!!! The words and the actions had us in hysterics. Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stone will always have a Japanese connection!