Sun, scuba and sunburn
Well, on Saturday it seemed like summer had arrived. Man, that was a good day. Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind and nice & warm. So I decided to take a break from the usual Sunabe/Kadena diving and head a little further north. Our first stop was Toilet Bowl, a diving spot near Manza Mo. The water looked a little surgy (is that even a word?), but we agreed it would be ok and kitted up. When we got down to the water’s edge thought the surge seemed to have picked up a fair bit. Entry would have been fine, but getting out might have been a little scary. So I looked at it for a minute or so and in the end called off the dive. That’s the first time I’d done that and it wasn’t something I was ecstatic about, but safety is always the primary concern. Maybe I’d have got in with Brian - if we could have got out here we could have gone around to Horseshoe, but the conditions weren’t good.
So, with Seragaki still under renovation, we headed down to Onna. After a little trekking through the field and surprisingly few scrapes on the bottom of my car (I need a Mitsubishi Delica - they are a real diving-mobile!). I’m actually very glad we went there though. We had 2 dives in almost perfect conditions. The visibility was around 20m and there was no current at all. We headed right along the fingers of coral and headed down a crevice which was pretty spectacular. Between dives we sunbathed/cooked on the beach and I got a little burnt so am a little tender today. Ah well, it was all for a good cause. After lunch and some more sunbathing we headed down to Junkyard (aka Sunabe North) for an afternoon dive. The soft coral there is spectacular and I can’t understand why it’s not more popular. The lack of natural landmarks can make it a little tough to navigate but it’s good for honing your nav skills.
Well, that’s about it from my dives for now. Summer didn’t last long as yesterday (Sunday) was overcast. At least the temperatures are in the low-to-mid twenties now. I will mention a couple of final things though. The first is that the latest issue of Dive Training landed in my letterbox on Saturday. This is a great magazine for divers, both instructors and recreational divers, and I recommend it to anyone. It is slightly US centred in my opinion, but it’s a US magazine so I can hardly complain. It covers everything from honing your diving skills to marine life, and I always look forward to reading my latest copy.
The last thing I will leave you with is a quote from the famous rugby league coach, Wayne Bennett in his book Don’t Die With The Music In You:
“Accept criticism and disappointment as a part of life, and when it comes stand up straight, look it in the eyes and say you cannot defeat me - I am bigger than you”
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