Penultimate day in Eriyadu

Another perfect day in paradise. Arose, ate breakfast, went snorkelling. Coffee, more snorkelling. Coffee and buns, snorkelling. Mocktails, siesta, tea, snorkelling. Circumambulation of island, rest, supper and so to bed.

Learnt more about the underwater camera today. Christine had given it to me as a birthday present but I'd not paid much attention to it previously. Now it was telling me its battery was low, so I opened up the casing expecting to have to insert a few AAA size cells. Instead I discovered a rechargeable battery. Strange, it definitely hadn't come with a charger. Then on closer inspection I found it also sported two sockets, a mini-USB and a mini-HDMI. Plugging in my phone charger to the mini-USB socket brought up a pictogram of a battery and a red indicator light. Hooray, problem solved.

Taking pictures of fish whilst snorkelling is much more time consuming and less productive than fishing itself. First, they don't keep still. Second, even if they did, you don't. The waves or the wind or longshore drift moves you one way, the fish you want for the subject of your photograph perversely moves another. Only the pretty backdrop of coral you have selected is static, but that is immaterial when everything else is moving. You need your hands to both operate the camera and swim at the same time. You can't see the image in the viewfinder because the sunlight is too strong and even if it wasn't you haven't got your reading spectacles on under your face mask. You need to get very close to the fish in order to get a decent picture, even in these crystal clear waters things get hazy rapidly with distance, and fish don't like you close to them, they swim away. Eventually on the rare occasion when everything is correctly aligned, you find you are in danger of being impaled on some hitherto unnoticed protuberance of razor sharp coral and have to abandon your position, paddling frantically to avoid it. All this whilst remembering to only breathe through your mouth. No, I haven't managed to take many pictures of fish.