A New Reef in Sanur

On Wednesday morning 40 volunteers dropped a new reef in Sanur Bay. 8 people to drop the 8ft x 10ft dome structure. 8 people to clean up algage on the existing coral reef in the area. 6 people to collect coral polyps from exisiting healthy reefs. Then everyone including myself took turns attaching the polyps onto the cage. I was under the water for 80 mintues and in 20 feet of water. I was soooooooo nervous. This was actually my first real open water dive outside of my certification process. It didn't help that all of my gauges were in meteric system. All I knew was that I had to surface when I started to hit the red line for my air supply. I wasn't worried anyways. I knew if I ran out of air I could swim to the surface with ease. It was only 20ft. It's like being in the deep end of the swimming pool. I was only scared about looking like a complete rookie in front of all the others. Everyone else was a dive master. Plus I really didn't want to stir up sediment, which limits visability and we had a couple of under water photgraphers with us that day.

As I did a back roll off the boat into the water, I felt myself get tuned in. Sasha our marine biologist kept a good eye on me. I think he was really surprised that I was very new to diving, and here I was trying to rally people together to save the reefs and build a new one. It's like someone talking you into taking skydiving and then you are on the plane ready to jump and you learn that it's there first time too! So funny. I like surprising people like that. It's just fun. Sometimes in life you will never be fully prepared for things, but you just gotta dive right in and learn the ropes. Naturally I am like a fish to water, so that helps alot and I did really well. I just watched from a distance, followed our marine biologist around trying to see what he was up to while the others collected coral. I was on the coral polyp team. Took lots of pictures. Saw lots of puffer fish, starfish, angel fish, black and white sea snakes, eels, coral, algae and other fish. Stayed very far away from the sea snakes, although they kind of appear out of nowhere. I saw one right at Sasha's feet, but he didn't pay any attention. I think they're poisonous?

Anyhoo, thank god I had my gloves on. Kevin got me these motor cross gloves by THOR because I had run out of time trying to find some gloves. I didn't want to buy a pair of diving gloves for tropical water, and I needed some gloves to handle the sharp coral. The coral actually feels sticky like velcro and wants to stick to your gloves. I must say that these gloves look pretty tough on me. Like I am going to go beat someone up. I love it. The gloves are handy because they also keep me from bouncing all over the reef and breaking off more coral than I was trying to save. This way I could use my finger tips to gently navigate myself through the water and I can easliy handle the coral polyp's for the cage. I must say that I did really good and hardly needed to touch anything. It's a good thing cause I was trying to take a picture of the existing artifical reefs and a little fish came up and bit me. What's up with that. It's like a two year old. Always having to put something in there mouth to see what it is. Gimme a break. These fish bite, they aren't afraid of some goofy woman in a scuba suit 500 times there size. I could almost feel the little mouth through my gloves.

At one point there were 10 people surrounding the cage to attach the coral. You have to move fast because you are running out of air with each breath. After a couple of people took off I decided to give it a try...despite my fear of starting a sand storm and stirring up sediment. I didn't come all this way to sit on the sidelines and watch. After a couple of pieces into it, I was a pro. Easy. Got in a good 20 mintues of coral on the cage before having to surface. Once I had surfaced I looked over and saw Ena. Ena is one of the founders of Bali Reef Project. It was so good to see him smile so big. Being the boss of Ena dive, you hardly see pure joy on the man's face. But it was just he and I, swimming back to the boat. It was the first time I actually felt that he let his guard down, and let me in. Giggling and laughing our way back to the boat. A rare moment that I will cherish. It was a good day.
ps, I get some pictures up later. : )