Fiji

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Matt headed down for breakfast and came back up with some fruit and toast for me. At least that was easy to carry up the hill. I actually managed a slice of dry toast and realised the worst of the bug was thankfully over.

Matt headed off for another dive; I spent the day in bed reading.

His second day of diving went well. This time it was Matt, Manie and another girl who was doing the last dive of her course, and there were also a group of certified divers too. Matt, Manie and the girl went off on their own so that he could test them on some things again. They saw lots of fish including stingrays and a shark (although unfortunately Matt missed this as he was probably too busy doing acrobatics somewhere). Manie found a big sea slug and lay it on the girls arm and pressed it down until it stuck!

The only problem was that this time Matt forgot to monitor his air like he should have done. Luckily Manie kept asking him how much he had left regularly. He was meant to get out when it got to between 20 - 40 on the dial. Manie asked him and Matt realised he’d only got 15 left, so Manie told him to get out. In the rush Matt forgot to vent his jacket, which meant it was filling with air and pulling him up quicker than he should have been going, and also forgot to take the three minute stop you’re supposed to do (he says it wasn’t really that necessary at that depth but they were told it was good practice). When he got to the surface he was quite a way from the boat and decided to swim for it, which wasn’t easy with the big waves of the open sea even when breathing through his snorkel. When the boat saw him it headed towards him and picked him up and they told him he shouldn’t try to swim as the boat is looking out for the divers and it can use up too much energy. Everyone else managed to stay down an extra ten minutes - Matt thinks he probably overdid the acrobatics so I made him promise next time to keep a closer eye on his gauge and make sure he comes out with more time to spare.

At lunchtime Matt headed up to me with some more fruit to add to the collection, and then headed back for an afternoon dive to the ‘cabbage patch’ which was an area of coral that was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The coral was literally like massive cabbage leaves. Here he saw an amazing spikey puffa fish that Manie pulled out of a hole and provoked until he puffed himself up to double the size. On this dive he had to show how he could use a compass which he thinks he just about managed ok even though he completely forgot how to use it and had to blag it.

By the end of the day I was bored of being stuck in a tiny room, and Matt was really excited and happy that he’d done so many dives and seen so much stuff so we decided to go down for dinner together to celebrate.

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