September 19th: Woke up to another beautiful day, the water was flat calm without a ripple, there were none of the local dive boats at Pink Beach so we called out to Heidi to go for a snorkel, and I radioed Per & Elizabeth and woke them up to come too. We picked up Peter & Heidi in our duck and we raced over to Pink Beach, as we were on our way over a boat arrived and there was another one coming but we grabbed one of the two moorings and Robbie and I jumped straight into the water with our snorkel gear. It was absolutely beautiful, fish all around us and Robbie spotted a big Moray Eel not far from the boat. I lifted my head to see where Peter & Heidi were and they were yelling for Robbie, so I called him and made my way over to see what they wanted. There was a snake in the duck!! It was one of the black and white sea snakes, and they are poisonous! Shit it was a bit stressful really, I’m yelling don’t throw it near me in the water, poor Heidi & Peter are scrambling around the duck (it’s not that big when you’re sharing it with a snake) and Robbie arrived and he’s trying to keep us all calm. Finally the snake was put back in the water and we all went snorkelling.
I was a bit nervous after that but in actual fact, although the snakes are highly poisonous – but they can only bite you between the fingers and toes, or on the ears as they only have very small mouths. Pink Beach is named so because of the pink coral that washes up there and it has turned the sand a pink colour. Heidi and I were able to find a few pieces of the pink coral and it is quite a dark pink colour. The sand is beautiful, clean and soft and feels like talcum powder. We had a great snorkel and swim and then headed back to the boat for breakfast. We were really hungry so had a big boy breakfast with scrambled eggs with tomatoes, streaky bacon and toast, Yum.
Then we had a morning of cleaning, Robbie cleaned and maintained all the dive gear, bottles, regulators and a general check and clean of it all. I cleaned the inside of the boat. We had lunch and then went over to the beach on Pangu Island for a swim. Heidi & Peter had already been over and Peter had climbed to the top of the hill, we weren’t that energetic! Robbie went for a snorkel and I walked to the other end of the beach, there’s some wild goats living in the scrub and they do come out when there’s no one on the beach but they’re pretty shy. Back to the boat and we just relaxed until it was time for sundowners on Pink Beach. All the tourist boats had just left and we all made our way over and watched the sun go down, very pleasant. I cooked a pork stir fry for dinner and we watched another episode of “Rome” and into bed. We had all agreed that another early morning snorkel would be good.
