"An Around-the-World-Ticket for Two, Please."

On Wednesday we had a very exciting trip planned! We had heard about a shark feeding scuba dive that a few people had talked about up in the northern islands, so we had been hoping we could do it when we were at Safe Landing, and luckily we could. We got up for an early breakfast and were picked up by a boat at 8.30am. We picked up a few others and then got to the dive shop. It had been 6 months since I had dived, which worried me slightly! I was a bit nervous about the actual dive, remembering everything and not freaking out, and hadn't even really thought about all the sharks we would see! We got all our kit together and then headed out to the dive spot called 'The Chapel'. The sea was quite rough, so as soon as the boat stopped it was rolling around and we were told to get in the water and under asap, so we were all ready and then one of the guides told me my air was leaking out of my regulator, so he had to change my regulator over, so eventually we jumped backwards off the boat and went down. I had a bit of trouble getting down, even though they had given us more weights than usual, so one of the dive masters came and wrote on his board 'exhale' which I did more, and he also dragged me down with him a bit, so got there in the end! All of us had to line up along a rope and stay behind it, standing up and watching the shark action in front of us. It was pretty amazing! There were black tip, white tip and grey reef sharks, Lemon sharks and Tawny Nurse sharks. They were pretty big and came pretty close! Surprisingly I felt really safe, even though we were only behind a rope, and they could swim wherever they liked, but we were all lined up and there were lots of dive masters around, so it felt fine! They bring down a big wheelie bin full of dead fish and open it up to attract the sharks! We were down there about 40 minutes, and got some cool photos. I was really glad we had done it, as I was nervous at having not dived in 6 months, but it came right back to me which is good to know! Getting back onto the boat I slipped off the ladder as the boat rocked and hurt my leg really badly. Ben also pointed out that I had a bloody elbow! Later that day my leg had a whopper of a bruise, which is still really bad looking! I have got some interesting looks from people when they see it!

The weather wasn't great in the afternoon, so we hung out in a hammock for a while and then went for our last afternoon tea! The lovely lady was serving banana cake which was delicious! The heavens opened while we were there, luckily she had an indoor area, so we all piled in there, and hung out while it passed. Met some nice people and enjoyed the yummy cake! Met the new arrivals to the island, including a couple called Morton and Becky, who we thought were English, but it turned out Morton was Danish! He sounded so English it was uncanny! The evening entertainment was games night again, which was funny, as we had obviously been there for the last one, but no one else had, so we knew what was coming! The weather got really bad and stormy, and was pretty bad all night, we were hoping it would all clear for our last morning, but sadly it did not.

We got up and packed our bags after breakfast, and all hung around in the bar area reading and chilling out. The staff sang us the farewell song and then we were on the big yellow boat back to the mainland. Since we had a 5 hour trip we decided to pay a bit extra to go in the Captain's Lounge, which is a nice quiet place with free food and drinks! We relaxed and enjoyed the trip back. Got back to the mainland about 6pm and got the bus back to Smugglers Cove. I was really looking forward to dinner, so after we had showered we went down to the restaurant. Ben's tummy was still a bit funny, so after fantasising about food for two weeks, he only managed to eat a few of the chips from the calamari and chips! Slept really well and had a lie in as we had a long Friday ahead of us!!!