SEAN O’ BRIEN
Luckily, my fin was the only carnage for the day despite the array of enormous sea turtles we spotted enjoying the shallow waters close to the reef and knowing the volume of sharks that patrol these waters.
There were times when I turned around and it looked like JC was literally going to fall out of the chopper – the angles he was flying at were so acute! It was a picture-perfect day, the sun giving us small windows of glamorous radiance, but enough to get the shots.
Before long the familiar buzz of the heli had disappeared over the horizon, our window with JC behind the lens expired and it was time to head back upwind to the anchored the boat and to derig all the sails before the tide came back in.
Words cannot describe the experience we had skimming over those reefs in that clearest of clear water. Sharing the beauty below our feet, the incredible fish species, the coral, the sheer magnitude of the reef and knowing the dangers, the sharks, the turtles, the savage reef, the shifting tides – this was a once-in-a-lifetime session.
It really rang true to me on the boat ride home as we trucked upwind through the steep swells, thrashing about in the back of the boat stacked with gear for an hour just to make it back to Green Island (30km offshore), before we could catch the ferry back to the mainland.