A Ray at Airport Beach

On Saturday we went back to Airport Beach (one of our favorites). It had to have been the most beautiful beach day we had seen in a long time. The tide was high, and the water was really clear.

The highlight of the trip was my personal swim out around the weather tower and into "Blue Hole" territory. Except I wasn't actually in the Blue Hole because it was past the rocks which set the boundary line for the Blue Hole. It was closer to the open ocean. I will affectionately call it "Blue Hole 2."

In Blue Hole 2, I saw some of the most beautiful coral colors I had ever seen. Blue, yellow, orange, white--it was just beautiful. Then I ran into a sea turtle. I think I'd seen him before; I'll call him "fidget." Even though I was completely calm, once he got the hint that I was there he darted off through the water.

As I kept swimming, I ran into a sea of beautiful blue fish. There were probably 500 of them! As I was admiring this school of fish, taking pictures, out of the corner of my eye I saw an even BIGGER school of large, yellow fish. I mean, this group had to have been at least 3000 strong. I started singing in my head, "anything you can do, I can do better." It was absolutely amazing.

I kept swimming until I ran into another group of really large fish. I mean, if I had my fishing pole.... These fish just nonchalantly swam right past my face; I could have reached out and grabbed one of them.

After that I turned around to make my way back to Airport Beach. I thought that Jessi and Jaydn had probably thought I had drowned or something. As I swam back, I looked down on the sandy floor and couldn't believe what I saw--a manta-ray! (or a sting-ray; I'm not an expert so I don't know which kind it was). I had never seen one in the ocean here in AS; I had only seen them in aquariums in NZ and the US. I took some pictures before it noticed me and swam away. This was definitely the highlight of my swim.

As I made my way back, I ran into another sea turtle who was less frisky. I got some pictures of him and made my way back in.

The rest of the day was spent with Jaydn and his friend Oliver. Jaydn has recently learned how to dive down 10-15 feet in the ocean without it hurting his ears. He is a great swimmer.

I'm going to miss this when we move back to potato country.