419 Dive Log Australasia AUGUST 2026

Looking Back The following morning our boat retraced the same route back toward Kadavu Airport. The sea was just as calm as it had been on the journey in. As we rounded one familiar point I recognized the break in the reef. Manta Ridge. From the boat it looked almost ordinary. Nothing suggested that only a short swim beneath the surface enormous rays would be circling patiently through invisible cleaning stations while tiny wrasses went about their work. That is one of diving’s great lessons. The most

Square Spot Anthias

cook for hours. When the covering was finally removed, fragrant steam rolled into the night air. The feast that followed was every bit as memorable as the diving. Dinner stretched late into the evening beneath unfamiliar southern stars while another bowl of kava quietly made its rounds. Nobody seemed in any hurry for the night to end.

extraordinary things often happen where, from above, nothing at all seems to be happening. By the time the little airplane lifted off the runway I was already replaying photographs in my mind. Not the ones I had taken. The ones I hadn’t. The manta that passed just behind me. The composition I almost found among the sea of

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Dive Log Australasia #419 August’26

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