Ant Atoll

Ben and I went to Ant atoll a couple of weeks ago with our friends Alison, Jeff and Elizabeth and their respective children: Sarah, Anya, Devon and Tess. Ant is located OUTSIDE the lagoon (near Black Coral) and went went by boat from our place, so it was a mighty 1 hr+ boat ride each way. Venturing outside the lagoon is a bit scary, lots of people are lost at sea here. And once you're out of the protective lagoon, there is an awful lot of Pacific Ocean out there. I briefly considered packing a 'lost at sea' survival kit, but when I could really only come up with soy sauce (to make warm sashimi more palatable) I realised I was not meant for survival at sea and might as well cast myself out of the boat as a sacrifice to Poseiden and hope he spares my companions. Turned out such altruism was not necessary this trip, I'll work on an emergency pack for next time.

The sea was really calm, Ant is stunningly beautiful, and we had lovely weather. We saw sharks, a turtle, more giant clams than you could poke a stick at, and ... yep. Lots of fish. No underwater photos though. I will continue to whinge about an underwater camera until I get one. Given the 24 year high the AUD hit last week, it's likely to be a while.





We had a pretzel tragedy, which we dutifully cleaned up and put the poor sandy pretzels in the rubbish bag. Then I noticed the hermit crabs going CRAZY and trying to tear the bag open... so I thought, what the hell. As if a bit more salt is going to hurt them..... They were so funny - turns out they can't eat the preztels, they just drag them around.