Today we slept in, read our books through a rain storm, then after eating we went for a swim. This time, we walked down to the pier on the North end of our cove and jumped in there, and swam South to the sandy beach we’ve been getting in and out of.

We covered quite a distance and were in there a long while. It was the most spectacular swimming so far. We saw more kinds of coral and many more fish than before. All different shapes and sizes of fish were darting in and around the coral patches, and we also swam through large schools of tiny fish flashing left and right and all around us. It was amazing. We would point neato things out to each other and dive down to inspect underneath overhanging coral together.

Dave pointed out the first spectacular find: a stingray! It was irridescent, grey/lavendar with blue spots. It was hiding under overhanging coral, but didn’t scare off when we kept going down to look at him. Then I was under the surface looking around and saw a turtle. I shouted, “TURTLE! TURTLE!” and Dave came over to see it too. We held hands and followed as it gracefully and efficiently swam near the bottom. It was heading into the current, the opposite of the way we came, and it was hard to keep up with it. He looked up and back at us a few times, but didn’t seem to mind us tagging along. The shell alone was at least two feet long, so it was pretty big. We were so close we could have made the effort to touch it, but we didn’t want to disturb it. After a while we came up and decided to head back the way we were going. A few minutes later I was under again when I saw a huge fish swim right by! I called to Dave and he barely saw it too. Later we found out from a local that it was a Parrot fish. He told us they are very friendly to divers and won’t hurt people. He did say, though, that if you are under and you die, that about two or three days later they will come back and nibble the bones clean.

We ate an early dinner, then went back out for dessert and juice. Every place here serves fresh-squeezed juice that’s more like a smoothie than just juice. It all tastes amazing, and we have to have some at every dinner.

We’ve decided tomorrow morning we’ll take the morning ferry back to Mersing and head up the coast further.