12.37.791N
61.21.393W
What a night! At one point when Dale checked we had 28 kts of wind. Just a squall blowing through but enough to grab your attention. I have to admit, of the 29 boats I counted (with 21 being charterers) no one dragged that I am aware of.
After we got our normal morning routine of breakfast, dishes & genset run, we jumped into the dinghy and headed for the Wall again. Rainbowrider and a guest on Magic joined in the fun. We tied up to a dinghy mooring ball set out near the reef and jumped in. I’d like to point out at this time that Dale was so excited about the dive that he couldn’t wait for me to tie my normal ‘granny knot’ and took over securing the dinghy.
We wound our way through the coral, out through the cut and scanned the wall. I guess because of the wind and waves during the night, the visibility wasn’t as good as it had been the previous day but still good enough to enjoy the view. We headed south and followed the wall until we noticed that the current was carrying us along rather quickly. So, we turned around and headed back. At some point, I pointed out the 4’ nurse shark headed in the opposite direction. We watched it long enough to make sure that it had no interest in us then returned our attention to our progress along the wall. We saw a good sized porcupine fish hiding among the sponges and coral but nothing more unusual. We floated among the schools of fish that were as curious about us as we were about them. I checked out a keel that some misfortunate sailor left behind. We returned to where we had come out onto the wall then passed heading along the northern side. We followed in that direction until it dropped even further away and the water being churned by the waves hitting the island became too murky to really enjoy the view.
Dale gave me the signal to head back, so we slowly made our way back the way we had come, passing the nurse shark heading in the opposite direction of us again. You could say that we and the nurse shark were patrolling the wall in opposite directions. Again, we made sure that it passed beneath us and continued on its way without taking notice of us before we continued in our own direction.
We returned to the bank where we had left the dinghy and as we came up on the bank, the dinghy was exactly where we had left it. However, during the swim back, I realized that our dinghy was no longer where we had put it but was making an escape. I signaled to Dale, who in turn shot past me as if he suddenly grown his own set of gills. He was making pretty good progress but a dinghy full of young girls zipped up and snagged it for him.
You know, it could have happened to anyone. However, since we’re in a normal marriage, I was just glad that I wasn’t the one who had tied the knot on this particular occasion. I wasn’t even going to say anything. But you know Dale . . . He discussed the knot tying procedure ad nauseum trying to figure out what he had done wrong and whether it was different than the way that I tie mine. Gary got into the discussion too saying that the knot look a little loose when they tied to the same ring, so they tightened it back up. I was just happy that it had happened at the end of our trip and not the beginning. We were gone almost 2 hours with waves being sent over the reef, so most likely, it was the constant motion that simply untied it, regardless of who tied it. Still . . . I’m glad that it wasn’t me.
