Day Four: Day of the Manta

I don't sleep through the nights on the boat, but I still feel refreshed each morning anyway. Maybe it's the sea air, or just the novelty of my experiences here, but my normal patterns of need don't seem to apply.

I don't have a morning swim, as it's quickly apparent that we'll be heading out early for more scuba diving. The family who stayed for dinner the previous ending swings by to confirm that they'll be meeting us at the channel as soon as we're ready to go. Shortly after they leave, a boat that has just anchored hails us. They understand that the Creola has a third passenger named "Dan" on board, and "would he like to borrow any of our scuba gear?" This would allow all three of us to dive at once so we happily agree to that, board Spicy and head over to begin our day.

Unfortunately, in the rush and bustle of the morning, we find that we only have two pairs of fins, having left one of ours back in Creola. So, only two of us dive at a time anyway. Further confusion results in my having weights in half of my dive vest, although I don't discover this until later.

We meet our friends at the mouth of the atoll. Rangiroa is not an island at all, but an atoll that is so large that the lagoon looks like a sea. I cannot see the arc of the atoll from the mouth, and the air is perfectly clear. The curve of the earth blocks my view. Here though, the atoll's ends pincer together, creating a channel with a strong current that pulls you into the lagoon. We bring the dinghy out to the edge of the ocean and dive in. I deflate my vest, again having some slight difficulty with the nozzle, and submerge.

It's like flying over the moon. It's like a dream. I spread my arms and legs out and the current carries me over a landscape far below of coral and fish and eels and more. I deflate the vest further, allowing myself to drop about 15 feet, knowing that this is far too deep for me to explore further and coast over the alien terrain. The magic of the experience is only marred by my tank repeatedly sliding over to my left side, threatening to flip me over. As the current weakens and I am able to control my direction and velocity, I find myself struggling constantly against the shifting tank. I am almost ready to call it a day and get back in the boat when I see Linda gesturing. I turn and see them.

Manta rays. Enormous, gentle, gliding manta rays. I've seen pictures, and I've seen small ones in aquariums, but these are huge. The larger of the two seems about eight feet wide, the smaller one about six. My mobility is limited by my shifting weight, but I hover in the water and watch them glide by. I know they are completely harmless, but I am daunted by the size of them. One turns and glides directly towards me. It's mouth is a great toothless cavern, sluicing plankton. I am not sure if I should reach out and touch it, but at the last moment it turns past me.

The tank finally becomes too much for me to deal with, so I return to the boat. I am utterly exhausted from what has only been fifteen minutes of diving, so I tell Bill to take the equipment and that I'll watch the boat while he and Linda make another pass. This way neither of them had to restrict themselves to 30 feet to keep an eye on me. Bill ties an empty gas can to a tether so I can keep track of them and keep the boat nearby. Linda exhorts me, "stay close to the marker". This works well, once I get the hang of the boat, until I put it in neutral and look around at the amazing scenery. I look back down and see that Bill is pulling the marker directly towards me. Before I am able to move the boat, the marker is caught around the propeller. I begin to panic, but then double check that the motor is in neutral and that the propeller is not spinning. Then, leaning precariously out of the boat while the waves slosh me about, I struggle to unhook the floating gas can from the propeller. Visions of accidentally hitting the "forward" button and either slicing myself or breaking the motor constantly flashing across my mind. Finally, however, I free the buoy and set it free, breathing a deep sigh of relief.

I keep a wider berth from that point forward, and move the boat in a wide circle around the marker. Then, I see them again. The giant manta rays. They swim very close to the surface, and I see their fins break the surface as they turn. After a minute or two of watching them, they start to come directly towards the boat. I could almost reach out and touch them as the repeatedly come to me and dive away at the very last moment. It's like they're playing "chicken" with the boat, although Bill later muses that the motor must stir up the plankton for them, so they've learned to associate dinghy's with a good food source. Our friends from the other boat are snorkeling nearby, so I point out the mantas to them so they can get a closer look.

I start to wonder if my sunscreen is holding up, as the sun is blazing down upon me.

Bill and Linda come back in the boat, exhilarated from the dive and the mantas, and Bill teases me about the big fish I had caught earlier and how funny I looked from 30 feet down, trying to dislodge the line.

We head back to Creola, happy and weary. On board, we have lunch and I write a journal entry before deciding to revisit the novel for the first time in months. I am very pleased that I had left myself notes on where I was planning to go next with the story. It's a mini-chapter with Latimer and the Brass Legion, and it quickly turns into my favorite chapter so far, even if it is the shortest. I realize that as events in the book begin to speed up, that the chapters will also begin to shorten. I also realize that the chapter I have just written will need to go earlier in the book in order to maintain the proper global sequence of events. Many things happen to characters who are far from each other at the same time, which makes for some interesting narrative issues.

I spend the rest of my writing time making a list of all the characters introduced thus far, and where they are geographically, and all the important objects as well. I think that I may be a little under halfway through the story now, which will make the novel around 80,000 words.

As night falls, we head over to the hotel grounds. The taxi driver and the mait're d that he was transporting on my first day on Rangiroa had mentioned a bar-be-que and show would be happening Sunday night, so we got ourselves a table, despite being originally told by the bar waiter that we would not be allowed in without a reservation. Once inside, it became clear why the manager had changed his tune, since several tables were vacant.

The food was good, especially for a buffet, although the local wine was a bit heavy on the tannen for my tastes. The performance was local dance, with a largely fine troupe. There was one young man who clearly was new to the group and constantly looking to the others to remember what the next move was. The children in the troupe were quite impressive though.

Through dinner and the show, however, I couldn't help but notice that the entertainers and the wait staff were all Polynesian, while the management was French. Perhaps this is only true of the restaurant, but I would not be overly surprised to find that this was the case in general. Locals in low paying subservient roles and whites in management, high paying positions.

Once the show was over, I was completely food, wine, and sun stuffed. We boarded Creola once more and as I made my way to my cabin, the ship rocked more heavily than it had thus far. For really the first time, it felt like what it was... a boat on the water. I fell asleep not to a gentle cradle-like motion, but something more profound.