Sunset Diving
My brother and I spoke with Olivier, who described some dives that we could do. Our mom gave us permission to participate in all three dives that he suggested. We were thrilled to be making our first recreational dive that evening at sunset. Felix and I rushed back to the boat to tell our dad the news. We gathered out equipment and left the boat in time to meet Olivier at 4:00. He gave a brief description of the dive and how it worked before we jumped into grey Paradive zodiac.ÂHe said it was special because of the way the light entered the water and we were likely to see the rare spectacle of surgeon fish reproduction. He fitted us up in BCDs and we made our way out the pass. A New Caledonian man would join us on the dive. He was nice man and who spoke a little English. As we entered the open ocean and rolled over monstrous waves, Olivier placed our BCDs between our legs and we rinsed out our masks.Â
Then, once we were 50 meters offshore the boat stopped, we strapped the BCDs and tanks on and plummeted into the water. He told us that there was some current and it would be best for us to hold onto him. I grabbed his BCD and we sunk to the bottom. Right away we could see the large Blacktip sharks in the distance and the abundant reef life swimming in and out of the coral. We could feel the surface swell pushing and pulling us along the bottom. We swam very slowly with the current along the drop off. We saw two sea turtles, three white tip sharks that came pretty close and a huge school of Barracuda.Â
As we got closer and closer to the pass, the current gradually picked up and in ten minutes we were holding onto the coral for dear life! The current was ripping past our faces and we had to let go of our coral holds sometimes.Â
He told at the beginning of the dive that we would have to be patient in order to see the surgeonfish reproduction. And oh boy, did we have to be patient. We waited for 15 minutes! I know it doesn"t sound like much but when the current of the water is pushing against you at 20 knots it feels like a lifetime.  Finally, after fifteen long minutes the show started.Â
It was like fireworks! The surgeonfish made sudden bursts above the rest of the school and let their eggs go into the water. Bigger fish circled overhead to catch the eggs as they released them. It must sound kind of sad but the fish knew it was going to happen so they released hundreds of thousands of eggs, and most of them will live.  After they did it numerous times and it seemed like they were going to stop, we let go of the coral and drifted onwards through the pass hugging the coast. We were in It was very shallow now and we started to surface. When we did the boat was right there waiting for us.Â
We had gone all the way through the pass so we were really close to the dive center. When we got back it was dark and we could see Felipe, (our captain) and Miranda (my 7 year old sister) waiting in the tender for us. We disembarked from the zodiac and jumped onto the tender after an amazing first dive.