Tuesday 12 July Shark, wreck and reef diving

With David and Chris's advance scouting the walk from the west over to the east side of the peninsula was a stroll in the woods. Literally. Chris had brought a home baked loaf for the elderly couple who lived near the lagoon. Their house was neat and all the sand under the palm trees freshly raked clean by 9am when we arrived.

Giant guitar shark



It was low water so we were able to walk out across the wet sand to the shallow lagoon where we were told we'd find the Grumann Hellcat plane which went down in 1943 after the US pilot clipped his propeller on a palm tree. Ten of us in the water (Chris has an ear infection) snorkelling in formation back and forwards couldn't find the wreck. However we did find a rare sight – a giant guitar shark drifting among the bottom in 8m of water. This is a strange shark – a hybrid ray / shark – completely harmless and shy.
We thought the wreck must have vanished under the sand. The couple on the beach remember the day it crashed 70 years ago. She was five and her husband 10 and he'd helped the pilot ashore. Frank was our hero today. He doesn't give up and found it a few meters from where we started our search. It was smaller than I expected and the propellers 50m away but there were some nice anemones and clown fish in residence.

Cari on Hellcat wreck

In the afternoon we went diving on the reef behind the boat. Frank came and kindly lent Andrew Karen's BCD and regulators to use. It was a lovely wall with healthy, vibrant corals and plenty of little fishes, not deep and no current. The only negative was the visibility wasn't perfect – at the turn of the tide there was sand in the water. David had brought the spear in case we found a lobster for dinner. We found lobsters but hardly big enough to make an appetiser so we took only memories and left only bubbles.