Living the life

Lochmarin
Thu 6 Dec 2012 17:48
Time to make you folk in the UK jealous now, you ones in NZ are a different matter - you're in spring time heading into summer, not suffering ice and snow and floods and gales and dark at 4pm and no light 'till after 8am like those in the UK.

Today. 

We enjoyed our coffee and breakfast on deck, whilst watching the few serious sun worshipers make their way onto the beach, then Phil tried to see if he could get a few of the fish who have set up home under our boat to be tempted by bacon rind (they weren't). The fish under the boat seem to hang out in layers. Down deep are the yellow ones, fringed with black, about 9 inches long I'd guess. They're sort of lacy, like they have too many fins. Next comes the big silver fish, with a black band just at the base of their tails, up to a foot and a half these guys. Finally, near the surface are the mean lean darting even more silvery fish, around a foot long, with a sheen to them, like their skin is tough and burnished.

We then took the dinghy over to to one of the reefs, anchored and went snorkelling. Wow.. lovely to watch whole groups of parrot fish, like the ones we saw in the marina, going about their business, they seem to fly through the water using their fins as wings, rather than just wriggling their tails to get along. We were swimming through schools of thousands of tiny silvery fish, with a line of jet green along their middles, swirling and reforming, like starlings on autumn evenings. We bugged the yellow blue and green tartan fish, following them round carved pedestals of rock, and along little underwater canyons... all the rocks were smoothed and carved by the sand the waves continually washed up against them. Beautiful.

Once we got back Phil made the sandwiches whilst I rinsed out the shorty wet suits and the goggles, then we headed for the beach for a picnic, some sun bathing and a bit of walking along the bay. There's some surf on the beach, making landing and leaving in the dinghy a matter of split second timing, but getting soaked is no problem as the sea's still lovely to swim in. The sun was so hot that we both had to resort to sun cream and cooling off in the silky sea. Not bad for the 6th of December!

Now we're back on board, enjoying pop corn and sharing a can of beer whilst the light turns golden on the beach besides us.


I know: I'm going to have to get a book and find out what alll these fishy chaps are called. Also, an underwater housing for the camera is called for: watch out Jacques Cousteau!