The routine continues: 6:30a knock, coffee, dive briefing, dive.  We returned to Mirayu Kandu, the same site as our 2nd dive yesterday.  The site where we knelt in the sand, hooked in against the current at 84’, and watched the white tip sharks pass back and forth in front of us.  Initially we only saw a few, they must have sensed our coming and scattered, but as we remained motionless for a while 4-6 sharks swam carefully by, then a few minutes later a huge school of 19, and my greatest count was 23 sharks!  They seemed to be idle; just swimming along, turning lazily and letting the current push them sideways a bit before straightening and swimming forward again.  No aggression, no hunting, just swimming.  When time got skirt we unhooked and let the current push us slowly through the channel, rising slowly to the surface to finish our dive.

As breakfast started the captain started up the engines and we began our 2 hour trip back across the straight to the South Male Atoll.

Dive 2 was a pinnacle dive at the edge of the atoll.  Timing was such that we were between the current change.  We had it in one direction at the beginning and the opposite at the end.  So we drifted, swam hard, then drifted again.  Not a spectacular dive – the visibility wasn’t great and there wasn’t a lot of “big” life.  The hard coral was amazing, thick and extremely colorful and we did see one large turtle absolutely chowing down on the coral.  Other than that, a few eagle rays, one shark, and the usual reef fish.

We had 2 hours break after lunch, remaining here at the same anchor spot.  The last dive of the day was a deep channel dive where they expected a strong current so I decided to opt out.  My leg was sore after a few days of hard kicking so I decided to have the afternoon off.  Still 2 more dives tomorrow!

I read all afternoon, enjoying the peacefulness of a quiet boat.  The Theia crew have their first chance to relax in the afternoons; in the mornings their busy cleaning our cabins or preparing breakfast & lunch while we dive, so they were all up on the bow chatting and drinking coffee.