Drinking games are bad!

Friday was my last ‘working’ day here in Tofo. Unfortunately, the Ocean Safari was cancelled as it was a bit rough so no more whale sharks for me on this trip :-( However, I have been really lucky and have seen quite a few so no complaints there!

I did go on a research dive on Friday afternoon to a site called Marble Arch, which was really beautiful! It was teaming with fish life and we also saw a family of cuttlefish on the reef! Adriana and I were doing transits (counting fish species for 2 mins in a 1m space in front and to the side while swimming along) and I did 5 transits. It’s really cool to be able to recognize so many different fish now :-)

I booked myself onto a shallow afternoon dive for Saturday which was to be my last dive here on this trip so I decided I could have a few drinks that night – oh dear! We started the evening off by dinner at The Bakery – we had a local dish called Matapa, which is a sort of mild spinach curry and it was delicious!! We then headed back to the house and I am rediscovering that drinking games are really bad for my health (you’d think I would have leaned that by now!!)! We played two drinking games and I seem to get drawn into them too easily so by the time we left the house to go out to a couple of bars, I was already pretty squiffy! Another drinking game at Fatima’s bar did me in though I managed to join in with some dancing at Dino’s bar before my homing beacon kicked in at about 2am and I headed back home to bed! I didn’t even get undressed before I hit the sack!!

So Saturday morning was spent nursing my hangover – and after a fry up at the dive centre restaurant followed by eggy pasta a couple of hours later at the house, I felt lots better! My dive was brought forward to 1pm. The dive centre was really quiet and we were the only group going out for the afternoon! There was a lady doing a scuba review and her friend doing a try dive so we went to shallow reef only about 2 mins away from the dive centre. It was a lovely wee dive and there was quite a bit of life on the reef, including a clown fish with babies, a baby moray eel, a crocodile fish, a blue-spotted ray and an octopus.

I was completely down and out on Saturday night and I managed to stay awake until 9pm before I headed to bed and left the others to it!!

I spent most of Sunday chilling out and trying to get rid of as much of the sand in my clothes and possessions as possible before packing them! The other guys and gals had had quite a session on Saturday night so most of them were very quiet all day!

We went out for pizza in the evening and we were joined by Val, Josh, Danni and Nick who work at Tofo scuba. Nick headed off for an early night but as Danni and Josh had a day off on Monday, they were well up for a big night out! We went back to the house and, yes you guessed it, drinking games ensued! We then went out to Fatima’s though I was pretty well gone by then! I went back home soon after we arrived (the old homing beacon kicking in again!) and managed to cook and eat some instant noodles before hitting the sack!

I didn’t feel as bad as I expected to yesterday morning! I finished packing, had brunch at the dive centre and got myself sorted to go! I said my goodbyes to the dive centre staff and to Adriana and Seed. Some of the guys and gals were out on an Ocean Safari but promised they would drive out to the airport to see me before I left.

I got collected by a taxi to go to the airport and when I checked in, they told me my ticket had been cancelled but as the flight was not full, I could be put on again!!! This airline is a bit of a joke, it seems!!!!! Sam, Luke, Emily, Charlie and Alex arrived at the airport to see me off and we said our goodbyes before I had to board the plane! I am very sad once more to say goodbye to all my new friends but as most of us are meeting up to go diving in Scotland in July, I am very happy that I will see them again!!

I had a good sleep at the Airport Grand Hotel near Jo’berg Airport last night and a really good bath this morning to get rid of all the sand that seems to have got into places that sand has no right to be in! My adventure continues now as I head to Australia this evening and will finally get to Townsville on Thursday morning – FREYA, I’M ON MY WAY :-)