It was but bitter solace that a few of my highly experienced companions looked as cadaverously wan as I. Delicious was it, then, when I heard the engine die down to silence and noticed that the boat no longer heaved about like a drunken sailor. I was up before dawn to delight in the return of my old self and in the vista that opened off the bow. We were anchored in Chatham Bay. I tried to imagine pirate ships set against the background of rearing jungle cliffs, wheeling seabirds, and distant misty peaks, but I failed. It was too peaceful, too natural.
Nature reigns here.
Red-footed booby and chick. I could see downy booby chicks waiting in nests high on Manuelita's gray walls while their parents plunged into the sea nearby, trailing a line of bubbles before emerging with fish in their beaks. Leaning over the side, I smiled at dozens of reef fish sidling up to the boat as if hoping for handouts. If it was alive above the surface, it was positively teeming beneath. While the Halls and their film crew made a series of dives to test their equipment and scout potential sites for filming over the coming weeks, Peter Kragh, our Danish-born divemaster, took me on two dives on either side of Manuelita.