Chapter 5: The Next Few Days

     During the six weeks that Tony stayed on Kanifay Island, he went on more dive trips than I should describe in this story; and he enjoyed more attractions, events, and activities than I have space to describe.  For that reason, it should be enough to tell of only a few dives, attractions, events, and other activities.

     This might be a good place in the story to tell the difference between an attraction, an event, and an activity—at least as far as vacation planners call them.

     An attraction is something that does about the same thing every time it is seen.  It’s either so carefully planned that there can be no unexpected changes, or it’s the kind of thing that can’t ever change.  The old Japanese airfield Tony visited was an attraction.  Everyone who goes there sees exactly the same thing.  A movie is also an attraction.

     An event should be well planned, but unplanned things may happen.  A basket weaving contest is an event because no one knows who will win.  A movie about a dance is an attraction; but, a live dance in front of you is an event because, even for the dancers, something unexpected can happen.

     An activity is an event in which you, the tourist, are doing something to make it happen.  Summing it up, a movie about a dance is an attraction; a dance may be an attraction or an event; learning to dance is an activity.

     Tony’s next activity came Sunday morning when he went to St. Andrews Church.  The church was a simple building with a painting on its front face.  In the painting, Kanifay people in traditional clothing were giving things to Jesus.  One was giving some handmade cloth; two others were giving stone money; another was giving a painting; the others were giving other things.

     The inside of the church was just as simple as the outside.  It had no ceiling, just strong boards that held up the roof.  The way the wood was cut and fitted into the roof, it made Tony think of a large boat.  The roof over the church looked as if someone had taken a very large boat, turned it over, and built a church under it.  The church seats were long and simple as in small churches in the United States. 

    The people were simply dressed, most of them wearing tee shirts or other short-sleeve shirts.  The men wore long pants or wraparound cloths but not short pants.  Most of the women wore store-bought skirts, although some wore traditional, handmade skirts that covered their knees.

     The next day was Monday, and it was Tony’s first day of diving in the sea.  Under the instructor’s watchful eye, Tony and the others checked out their diving gear, filled their tanks, and carried the gear to the dive boat.  By 9:00 AM, the dive boat had left Chamorro Bay and headed for a nearby dive site.  

     Once at the dive site, Tony and the other divers put on their wetsuits, dive boots, flippers, and such gear as special wristwatches, weight belts, computers, and a machine that would tell them the water pressure.  They also put on something called a buoyancy control device, or BCD.      

     A BCD, besides being the first four letters of the alphabet, is something to make sure that a diver isn’t heavy enough to sink or light enough to float upwards.  The diver is supposed to feel as though he doesn’t weigh anything, so he doesn’t have to try to keep from sinking or rising.

     When it was time to make the dive, the divers wet their face masks so the masks wouldn’t let water in; then they put the face masks on.  Some of the more experienced divers sat on the side of the boat and fell over backwards into the water.  The beginners jumped in.  All the divers, of course, held their hands over their masks as they entered the water.

     No matter how many dives a diver has made, diving in the sea is always like being in a completely different world, like exploring the kind of far-off world that you see only in science fiction movies.  The difference is, it’s really happening.

     Tony was surprised to learn that many undersea plants look like animals; many undersea animals look like plants; many undersea plants and animals look like rocks.  Some of the animals that looked like plants seemed to be waving in a wind.  Corals are tiny animals that grow together to look and feel like rocks.

     Colors of plants and seemed brighter under the sea than they did on land.  Hard corals and soft corals came in many bright colors.

     On the land, snails you find in a garden are usually dark, ugly things; and their shells don’t look like anything special.  In the sea, there are many different kinds of snails.  Their shells come in different shapes and colors; and many snail shells have two or more colors and interesting designs.  Some sea snails have no shells, and the snails are very colorful.

    

One kind of sea snail is shaped like an ice cream cone; and, for that reason, it’s called a cone snail.  There are over 500 kinds of cone snail.  Each cone snail has from 50 to 100 kinds of chemicals they use to attack other animals for food, and each type of cone snail has different chemicals.  Doctors sometimes find out how to make those chemicals, and they use them for medicine.  For the 500 kinds of cone snails, that’s a total of 250,000 to 500,000 different chemicals.  That would be a lot of medicines even if the chemicals can’t all be used for medicines.

     The animal that looks like a waving plant uses another kind of chemical to attack fish and eat them.  For some reason, clown fish—the kind of fish in the Disney movie Finding Nemo—can swim all over it, and the chemical doesn’t hurt them.

     Soon, Tony saw a small pair of eyes watching him.  It was a sea snake hiding behind a rock.  Sea snakes usually hide themselves and jump out at fish to eat them.  They won’t try to eat divers because divers are too big for them to eat.  The sea snake had a many very sharp teeth, though, and Tony had already been told not to get his hand too close to one.

     Tony’s diving instructor signaled him and pointed toward a sea turtle.  The sea turtle swam past them and headed away from them, not interested in being touched.  There aren’t very many sea turtles in the world, so it was unusual for Tony and the other divers to get close to this one.  They were able to take a few pictures before the turtle swam away.

     A few minutes later, the diving instructor signaled again.  A shark was swimming nearby. 

   We all know that sharks sometimes hurt and even kill swimmers who are not scuba divers.  That’s usually because the sharks hear the splashing sounds that swimmers make; and, to sharks, it sounds like a small sea animal in trouble.  To a shark, a small animal in trouble is easier to take as food than other animals.  That’s usually why sharks hurt swimmers.

     Scuba divers, on the other hand, swim along quietly underwater.  The shark doesn’t think that scuba divers are small animals in trouble, so they rarely hurt scuba divers.  Just the same, Tony knew it would be a good idea not to get too close to the shark.

     The diving instructor soon gave a hand sign to the other divers to say that their first dive was finished.  They would go back to the boat.

     After lunch and a rest, they made a second dive.  Tony felt he had learned very much on his first dive and he became surer of himself.  During the second dive, he learned more and became surer still.

     He looked forward to future dives.  He also looked forward to seeing and enjoying more of Kanifay Island.