Here in Layang, Layang, Spratly this week, we truly feel like the odd couple. Everyone here is a diver. One American even asked us – very surprised – “How is it possible?! You are here in one of the top diving spots in the world and you don’t realize it?!“. Well, we answered: “You are here in one of the most desired remote locations for amateur radio and you don’t know it?!“.
It must be true though. There are people from all over the world here: France, Germany, Poland, Italy, etc… One young man from Poland is coming especially to photograph sharks, and he has been doing this everywhere already it seems: Galapagos, South Africa, Maldives, etc.
In any case, between two sections on the radio yesterday, we managed to walk to the end of the small island and try our snorkeling equipment. Nice! Very nice! The reef was shallow, the water clear and we saw a number of tropical fishes.
But the reason why this place is so incredible for divers is that there is a very abrupt drop of the reef, to what seemed like a bottomless ocean.
The funny story though belongs to my husband Ed. He was following a nice big and colorful fish when he suddenly saw a shark… “Cool, I need to get closer,” he thought, and here he went… After a few seconds though, he reached “consciousness”: “Eh, what in the world am I doing?… This is a SHARK!!! And I don’t even know if it is dangerous, or how big or how far it is…” Funny, no?…
I guess we enjoyed it because we were back snorkeling today, but this time we took the boat with the divers. Fantastic… Stingrays and many fishes. But the most beautiful sight was actually the first few seconds underwater when I discovered the reef and a few divers starting their dive just under me. It was almost like a smooth and peaceful dance… And the water was so incredibly clear. Too bad I did not buy that underwater camera after all!!