“It’s my birthday and I’ll dive if I want to dive if I want too….” Yep today was my birthday and surprise surprise I was diving AGAIN!! Another early start down at the dive shop to meet SB. The morning dive went smoothly and we even saw a turtle!! It swam away pretty quickly but it was a magnificent sight nonetheless!!
Morning dive over and I headed back to the resort room to meet SG for lunch. On my bed was a card and present which was a cool surprise as I wasn’t expecting anything. It was a weird feeling knowing I wasn’t going to hear from anyone due to the lack of internet and phone, almost like a regular day. Not that I would have changed it really, it was kind of refreshing not having internet for a while..
Post lunch and I met back up with SB at the dive shop to learn “compass skills.” He sent me out in the water with a compass and I had to navigate my way back under water to a certain point.. Lets just say it wasn’t a complete disaster…. After that we drove out on the boat again to do dive 3 along with W the divemaster. W’s story was not dissimilar to SB’s in that she had been working in the city and had enough and decided to become a diver full time. The only difference is that she is a lot younger… Still I admire her decision, you only live once and money whilst a necessity isn’t the crux of what will make you happy. Dive 3 was probably one of the hardest as skills came back into it. I had to clear my mask again (which I hate doing) and nearly choked in the process. The compass skills were slightly limited too.. Ah well.
I got back to the resort to a chorus of “Happy Birthday’s” from M+M in the hut next door. A Gecko was wandering around too loudly screaming Gecko which resulted in some Gecko chasing for some photo opportunities. Nicely spruced up in our finest glad rags SG and I went down to Mama’s for dinner. A small incident with a French man annoyed us slightly – as we headed to sit down he dived up and grabbed the table we were heading for and attached it to his own saying we couldnt sit there because he was saving it. We were tempted to move the table we did get to the position the other table had been in but decided we would leave him to be a French ass.
As it was birthday night we decided to splash out on the bbq which involved buying a monster fish to be cooked fresh on the beach side bbq with a side of rice and jacket potato and salad. We choose the biggest sweet lips fish available and it was YUMMY. I also had one of Mama’s chocolate milkshake specials. A dinner to die for at a bargain price.
N+A came down to join us later as did an English couple C+A who had brought monkey juice with them which N had been telling us about. The drink of choice on the island.. Very strange looking brown spirit… We had never been to Mama’s toilet facilities before and SG came back with a photo showing their all round beauty. Described by SG as “the worst toilet she had ever peed in” they were housed in tin shacks with toilet paper blocking holes in the wall and mud on the floor. Later on in the evening I decided peeing in the bush was preferrable to the toilet option….
Later on some locals set up a fire further down the beach and so we went along to join a rather large group of people for a sing song. A chorus of happy birthday went round instigated by N which was really cool. Far away from everything the stars were incredibly clear in the night sky and moon was reflecting beautifully on the water. A birthday unlike any other I have ever experienced…
