Saturday, the recreational dive day, has come around again. We've all been looking forward to this as our opportunity to spend our underwater time doing whatever we want, not having to exercise our brains and going deep enough to see some big creatures.
The morning dive was quite romantic. It was clearly mating season, and no fish went stag. It was quite amazing to see pairs upon pairs of every type of fish, all out in force and partnered up. Even the cowfish had a date. Add a disco ball and some slow eighties music and it could have been my high school prom all over again.
The swell was particularly bad, which made diving a little less pleasant and getting in and out of the boat extremely unpleasant. I banged myself up pretty well, added a few bruises to my collection and was exhausted by the time we reached shore.
For the second dive, I was contemplating sitting out. But then I heard we were going to Sisters- the island we couldn't get to last Saturday.
Personally, I'm hoping to see a manta ray. Most divers are praying for sharks. With Sisters, we've got a good chance of seeing either. Maybe even both. But it's going to be a great dive, I can feel it...
And it was a good dive, for the first wave. They saw blacktip reef sharks, and someone claims hammerheads though it's questionable as he was the only one to see them. Second wave, on the other hand, got to see a sweeping view of the middle of the bay. That's as far as we got before the engine died. Again. I'm starting to think second wave is cursed. The captain was able to get the engine going, but only enough for us to limp back to shore.
After the disappointing 'dive', the captain took a few of us into town to cheer us up.
Charlotteville is a beautiful seaside town, and very clearly a fishing village. Fishing nets are strung along the roadside to dry or be mended. The jetty is busy throughout the day as fishermen unload their catch. The town is small, but contains a school, grocery store and several small shops. Apparently, there are no set opening hours for the stores, and so one just has to hope the shop they need is open when they get there.
We didn't go much past the internet cafe, on the side of town closest to the expedition site, but I could see enough to get a feel of the town, which I enjoyed very much. And the people are quite friendly, a few stopping to chat while I waited for the others to finish checking their e-mail.
On the walk back, we passed a couple of men on the street, one of whom took offense to the shirt the captain was wearing- a Coral Cay T-shirt.
He was irate that our group was in his village, acting as "intruders destroying the reef". As a fisherman, he has a vested interest in keeping the reef healthy. Unfortunately, no one has bothered to tell him that Coral Cay is here for the same reason. In fact, Coral Cay hasn't told anyone in the village who they are or what they're doing here. There is a community outreach program, but it's aimed at another town. The very town that is hosting the project knows nothing about it. The captain explained a bit about Coral Cay to the man, and that seemed to calm him down. He then invited us to speak at a town meeting, giving Coral Cay a perfect opportunity to spread the word and gain local support. Sadly, no plans are in the works for this, and we don't have enough status to accept the offer on behalf of the organization. Back at the site, we passed the message along, but I don't think anything will come of it. After two months in the same location, anything that was going to be done would have been done already.

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