Time for school(s)!

The rest of the days in Manihi sort of blurred together. They were fun, to be sure. We moved from spot to spot sunning, making fun of the French that looked as if it were such a bother for them to be in this paradise. So, for now I’ll just focus on some of the activities, then recap the last day.

One of the things that filled our days was snorkeling off of our balcony. Part of the reason we didn’t mind waking up at 6 am every morning (we never did adjust to the time) was because it was by far the best time to snorkel. The waters were calm, no one was out, and the fish were feeding. It’s a great way to wake up — go jump in the water.

There were so many colorful fish — the bannerfish and the picasso fish (my favorite) were two that were plentiful around our bungalow. Along with larger versions of these guys, which we never did find out what they were called:

One morning, while I was watching from the deck, Raju got a very closeup view of the bannerfish. They swarmed around his face, the entire school, not more than 6 inches away. I decided they thought he might be one of them since his mask was yellow and black. I unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me at the time, and I didn’t want to miss watching that to run in and get it. So, no pictures of the bannerfish, but you can see some on Google images.

Another bit of interesting sea life were the mollusks — I suppose sea scallops maybe? They had white, wavy shells, but what was really cool was the area between the shells, where their mouths were, were brilliant colors of jade green, electric blue, and hot pink. The mollusks would also bury deep into the coral. I had to do a double-take as I swam past one piece, because the mollusk had burried in so deep that it matched the coral’s color (no brilliant colors) and it looked like a mouth on the coral that was talking to me!

But, the scariest of all things we saw — sharks! We saw quite a few different kinds. From the deck we spotted what was either a lemon shark or a nurse shark. It was a light rust-color and about 5 feet long. That thing could move fast! It looked like it was just leisurely swimming (i.e. not after anything), and it was booking it.

I’ve decided what I saw while snorkeling was a blacktip reef shark. Seeing him definitely got my heart started, but he seemed to be just chillin’ a ways off, and he didn’t pay any attention to me. So, while I was slightly freaked out, I decided it was okay.

However, the next day, I ran into Fric and Frac. If you look really close in the image below you can see one just left of center, and the other above him, near the top towards the right.

These guys scared me, although they were only a foot and a half long. If my heartrate was elevated before, now it was racing. Fric and Frac were a team, and I swam directly into their faces. They were very interested in me, every time I turned around they were right there, swimming towards me then darting away, like they were trying to test me. On this day, I ended up not staying in the water very long. I checked out an awesome site of bannerfish feeding on some coral (tons of them, it was neat), then I booked it back to the ladder and got the heck out of the water. This was on Tuesday (we left on Wednesday). It was my last time in the water, because Fric and Frac kept hanging out around our bungalow. I must have smelled tasty.

It was either Tuesday or Wednesday when I was feeding fish that I realized how fast these things are. Fric and Frac were still hanging around, and they decided to get in on the action. If they were around when I dropped bread, they had it. They were lightning fast and could whip their bodies around in a fraction of a second. It made me realize that if that reef shark had decided he wanted to try a bite of me, it wouldn’t have mattered that he was dead still and 10 feet away. He could have been to me in 2 seconds flat — probably less.

We never have figured out what type of sharks Fric and Frac are. They had some odd ridges across their head, but they were definitely of the shark family. We’ve searched the internet fiendishly since being back, but neither of us have come up with the answer.