Winking and Waterfalls: Turning 30 at CCC

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I turned 30 at the weekend and had an amazing day. I am usually very lazy about celebrating my birthday and have very underwhelming memories from my 18th and 21st so I am glad to finally have has a milestone birthday worth remembering!

As it was Saturday, we started the day with Deep Clean and then had two practice survey dives. The weather had miraculously cleared up overnight and the sea was beautifully calm and clear so we were able to dive at House Reef again which was great as we had spent the previous days trekking over to Analao and Estrella. Going to these sites meant longer days and fewer fish to see, although we did get a very nice boat ride with some extra drama thrown in for free when Pete's flipflop was spotted floating behind the boat and Ricky from the boatcrew did a heroic dive into the water to rescue it.

The water at House Reef had become so clear and warm that I fit in two snorkels around the dives and happily spent most of the day in the sea. These were the best snorkels of my life as the visibility was perfect and there was so much to see, my favourite thing being the anemone city which was an incredible collection of anemones with at least thirty Nemo fish swimming busily about.

Later on we tucked into a mango float (a delicious concoction of mango, biscuits and ice cream) and then headed to the beach for a fire and some drinks. Debbie, Nat and Sim brought along some instruments and spent the night jamming which was great. Sim is in a gypsy band called Band of Fools at home which plays music of an eastern European/ klezmer/ gypsy style which happens to be my favourite type of music so I was especially happy when he did an acoustic version of his band's song Wink if You Love Me (we have all been humming it ever since).

The next day, being Sunday, was our day off and a bunch of us set off for the waterfalls which were about an hour's drive from base, followed by a forty-five minute walk through the jungle, crossing fast-flowing streams and scrambling up steep hillsides. The falls were beautiful and we wasted no time in stripping off and jumping into the invitingly cool water. Swimming out to the waterfall proved to be more challenging than expected and we all experienced the unusual sensation of swimming on the spot (rather like a swimming version of a treadmill) as we fought against the current. Through sheer determination and a lot of grabbing onto nearby rocks, we eventually made it and everyone took a turn at sitting behind the waterfall, except for me as I had got distracted by a nice climbable rockface nearby and was halfway up it before remembering that coming down is always the hardest part so I did a hasty abort-mission and jumped back into the swirling depths below only to be returned by the current to where we had left our backpacks.

A little while later, our guides cut open some fresh coconuts for us and we had a refreshing drink of coconut juice to revive us after a busy morning of hiking and swimming. Debbie and Iris received an extra high level of service when Javier swam back out to the rock they were sitting on (having made it to the rock against the current, they were not giving it up again in a hurry) with an opened coconut held high above his head. I still dont know how he did it as the rest of us struggled enough with the current even using both arms and unencumbered by a heavy coconut so it was very impressive.

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