Merlo reef, the third dive of a day

Merlo  is one of the most beautiful reef in the North itinerary, it is about 3 miles from the lagoon of Shambaia. The south and south west side, are suitable for a fascinating third dive.










It’s true, the shark is greatly desired, the encounter is an excitement, and we need emotions. If it’s a school of sharks it’s even better: the heart beats, the feeling is extreme…. And yet a photograph is exciting, to own the “snapshot” and then talk about it, with due pride, why not, what’s wrong with it.
Then, after a couple of dives looking for the very sought sighting, the third dive.
A third dive, as the word itself implies, is a relaxed dive at restrained depth, without great efforts.  From which, inevitably, you don’t expect that much.
Then perhaps we really get to a new horizon: the blue surface opens, as a curtain, and it closes above us, wrapping us into the silence of our breath. 

And a carousel surprises us, a one-off and unique gesture, each time different: a moray eel languidly laid down and sinuous on the rocks as on a pillow, the fluorescent routes green as paths of a Platygyra, pulsing octopuses, soft corals of a gentle pink, purple and intense cardinal red colours. Small paths open among golden suns and Spirobranchi giganteus as flowers in bud.
And we don’t know where to watch anymore, a little in the blue, among the barracudas opening as pick-up-sticks not far away, a little on the wall, a little half way. And the surgeonfish coats as peacocks and the most unusual colour combinations, we’d never thought to combine but still look perfect together and standing out and glowing in a complete harmony. Bannerfish dancing, graceful and suspended as feathered ballerinas, clownfish peeping out among the embraces of actinias, the tridacnas blossom soft as variegated velvets.

Impalpable and transparent the shrimps, hairy and sanguineous the crabs, as a tulle in the wind, rather than in the current, a Ceriantide. A Gellyfish called “Cassiopea”. And it’s right, this name has to brush against us as a constellation because this is the vision, endless of shapes and shades, plunged into a space that seems unlimited. In this late moment of the day, during this third dive everything is forgotten. The hour goes by in minutes. And the recall to go back almost surprises. The lone hammerhead shark passing through, just like that, unexpected, slowly, on the bottom, in the mysterious half-lights of the late afternoon, 
is welcome…however, who knows, somehow it feels as an intruder, we are still distracted by the rainbow…