Let us dive!!!

No blogging, no diving, no nothing... So no diving has just been for the last week, but it feels like it 's been almost as long as no blogging, which has been considerably longer, no surprises there!

When Kini at Hideaway Activities meets pro surfer Kelly Slater at the airport, you know that Windguru was correct, and the big swells are a reality. Many pro surfers, many tow ins and alleged 100ft faces at Cloudbreak, but as I can't find anything about that on the web, I'm guessing the coconut express is exaggerating a little.

Predicted three metre swells were enough to get us to take Skylark and Stingray to safe harbour in Korolevu a week ago, where the boys were on guard through out the high tides, though not sure how much was guarding and how much was drinking kava... Monday was pretty messy, with the swells building, but Tuesday was the biggie, with 20ft waves hitting Fanny Hill at low tide. High tide brought waves over the wall at Hideaway, several of which made their way to the pool, much to the surprise of the guest still swimming. Six inches of sand was deposited on the bottom of the pool, along with several fish, and a gaggle of hermit crabs, so no pool session for us the next day. All shiny and new again now, though somewhat colder and a little salty. Returning to the instructor house revealed that the house was still standing, though the high tide mark was way behind the house, big coral chunks in our garden, which now has more sand on it than the beach. The beer bottle mountain under the house was proven not to be the only support holding it up, as they are now spread all the way to the lemon tree. Captain Indiana Spider Cat did not have to go down with his ship...

Monday looks like it will be OK to dive (please, please, please), boats will be back and it will be interesting to see what has happened to the dive sites. Stingray will have changed the most, but is pretty resilient, and I don't think I'll be finding my mask on Casbah in the near future, might be worth a walk along the beach... The poor old blue starfishes had a hard time, and many were washed up on the beach. Naiomi made it a kid's club activity to put all the starfish back, which was great until the kids started playing frisbee with the poor things. We'll have to see if the nurse shark that has been hanging out on Big Foot and Sundance is still around, and the Napoleon wrasse harem...

So dive shop super tidy, kit all beautifully polished, boats scrubbed and shiny, compressor shed sorted and cleaned, van scrubbed to within an inch of it's life, dive instructors and dive masters all ready to go - here's hoping!!!

I'll update you on what we find underwater soon... Plenty beer botles, I'll wager
Claire