Dear all,
 
I have told this story before, but not on this list, so I hope it will be
new to most of you.
 
Before our kids were born, we used to enjoy a diving trip to the Great
Barrier Reef once a year. On one of those trips we had a lot of rough
weather. There is not much shelter for boats out on the reef, except for
the lagoons. And the Lady Musgrave Island Lagoon usually resembles a car
park a the supermarket in late afternoons, as all boats in the area return
there for the night.
 
One morning we decided to go for a dive outside the lagoon. There was a
current, so when my husband and I jumped in the water, we decided to follow
the boat's anchor chain to the anchor, and then look around from there.
While we were swimming almost underneath the boat, there was a very loud
'snap' in the water, and I looked up, suspecting that someone had
accidentally dropped a weight over the side. No so! The anchor chain had
broken and the boat started disppearing out of sight pretty fast. We
gathered some others and surfaced. The boat had floated on the current, and
thrown out the heavy duty anchor in deeper water. We decided to proceed
with the dive, and on this dive I found some amazing shells, including
Clanculus granti I have mentioned before. Upon resurfacing, we decided to
swim back to the boat. Some swam on the surface, like my husband, who
usually runs out of air very quickly. Us 'fishes' preferred to stay below
the rather choppy surface. Halfway to the boat we saw the biggest seasnake
I have ever seen!
 
We then went to retrieve the other anchor, and the crew and captain
demonstrated some amazing seamanship.
 
Those were the days...
 
Patty
WWW: http://www.capricornica.com
 
Capricornica Publications               on-line natural history bookshop
P.O. Box 345
Lindfield NSW 2070
 
phone/fax: 02 9415 8098 international: +61 2 9415 8098
 
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