16 October: Butterfly Valley to St Nicholas Island

Early this morning (about 4:30am apparently) the boat headed to our next stop, Butterfly Valley. We woke up at 8am just as we arrived. There was no one else around at all!

Unfortunately it was a very overcast morning but we still had a pretty awesome swim. And, actually, after I was out, I had the next exciting sighting of the trip, from on the boat (the viz was so good!). I watched a cuttlefish swimming about. Very cool!



After that we headed to another little beach where the group of doctors were hoping to go Paragliding. Unfortunately  for them, even tho we saw loads of people floating down from the mountain, their trip was cancelled due to wind.

We didn't stay too long and didn't even leave the boat to explore the busier-than-Butterfly-Valley beach.

From there we headed to our overnight stop at St Nicholas Island.



I was off the boat with the snorkelling gear (barely any working masks and only one snorkel!) almost immediately after lunch. Best stop so far!

So many fish. A sunken city (sort of). I saw 2 more eels, a school of about 8 little cuttlefish and 3 pufferfish. Also, sadly, plenty of litter.

By the time I headed back, The Trucker was over his need to relax (last night catching up with him - haha) and we headed out to snorkel together. After a Nutella Roti / Pancake from a sales-boat. We saw hardly anything! Very disappointing.

We relaxed a little more, the group of doctors got collected from our boat for their next stop and the rest of us headed up to explore St Nicholas Island's ruins just before sunset.