We came back to the same spot the next day. This time I waited until the sun was nicely up and shining bright. Until then I was picking up shells on the shore. When I was doing that, I walked along the shore and a few meters to the north of yesterday’s entry point, I found more corals and shells in the sand. I then thought this side was probably a better area to dive than yesterday’s.
By then it was hot enough so I grabbed my mask, fins and the camera and went into the water. This spot started out even shallower than yesterday’s entry point and I couldn’t walk at all inside because the dead corals under the feet hurt. While swimming I had to support myself up with my hands to not let my body drag on the bottom.
This time I knew a little more of what to look for so I tried to observe more among the dead corals for gobies as they were the fish who were likely to hide in this area. I did find a brown and off-white goby. I again found an open anemone. While I was going ahead I suddenly saw a couple sargeant majors who seemed to hurry away as they saw me as though they came the wrong way. It sort of raised my hopes up. “A sign of corals nearby?..” I thought.
I saw bits of acropora here and there and even though they were fragments each of them excited me more and more. Then I stumbled upon a big plate/branch of acropora fallen upside down and bleaching on one side. It pained me to see it. I knew it probably wouldn’t help but I thought of putting it back upright. I dived to pick up and found out it was extremely heavy although I did manage to upturn it. I went ahead and found a rock structure and there it was! Branches of orange acropora! It was like a garden underwater. It made me so happy. I quickly took my camera and recorded my findings. I dived to find out if there was anything underneath. There were almost no fish in sight like yesterday but I did see relatively more of them. On the rocks beneath the acropora I found a couple of neon yellow feather duster worms/tube worms. Among the acropora there were also brain corals, big porites boulder corals (maybe, while I was diving I thought they were sponges) and also few of Goniastrea that had a neon green colour at the center of each polyp. I had seen these only in pictures and it delighted me to see them live! There were yellow striped butterfly fish swimming over the acropora as though they were the gardeners of the underwater nursery (still have to ID the butterfly fish).
I was shivering almost the whole while and after some point it became quite unbearable so I made my way back. Although it was a fairly relaxed dive (shallow and extremely calm) my body exerted so much energy in keeping itself warm that I was exhausted after the dive and for the rest of the day.