What?? No hangover??

A fabulous feeling to wake up hangover free! All very excited, especially Rana, as we have arranged to be picked up from our anchorage to go diving. I have my Open Water Cert however, I also have a fear of depth & I am not a good swimmer, so constantly struggle with the feeling of impending doom and drowning. The urge to bolt to the surface can be overwhelming. Therefore I am not going diving and nor is Trace.

Our chart of our trip

The boys (Ali & Cam) from Dolphin Pacific Diving came to collect us on their clunker and off we went to Kitu Island. Ali, Rana & another girl Camille went down for an hour and reported back on a cave full of sharks and loads of coral. It was quite choppy and we swayed around on the boat watching and waiting. When the divers came back we went off to Nua Papu and Mariners Cave. An apparently stunning cave where you have to free dive for about 1.5 metres under a shelf , swim along for 3 metres before resurfacing in the cave. I must admit I had psyched myself up for this for months and was very nervous.

Cam, Trace, Rana, Kel & Ali

Trace & Ali jumped off the boat and swan a distance to the cave and I followed minutes later. The swim over in the swell nearly did me in and I had to call Ali for assistance. I was buggered. We thought we could do the buddy system to get me in the cave but I think I was beyond all positive thought by then and just couldn't fight off the negatives. I backed out and had Cam come and get me. Trace went in and reported back that it was awesome. Rana was too tired from her dive and rested up.

Next site was Lonely Rock. On the way Cam cooked up some sausage sangas, which went down really well. We dropped the divers off for a drift dive and Cam took us to a shallow snorkel spot which was great. Spent ages in the water until we started to get a little cool.

Rana & Ali

The boys dropped us back to Sirocco. At least Lepa would have had some nice quiet time to himself. The decision was made to head out to another anchorage so we decided on Kenutu Island. It was a little tricky to navigate through Fanua Tapu Pass but we managed to sail it by tacking through the markers without running aground! It was worth having Lepa on board just for this leg of the trip.

The open ocean is just on the other side of this island and you could hear the rollers and breakers on the cliffs. The reef kept us pretty protected from any swell, so we had a very comfy night with a good steak & mash meal washed down with lots of good wine.

Mariners Cave