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This is a world distinct from the waters above. Creatures of this zone seldom mix with their shallow water relatives. Scarlet, magenta and violet coloured splendid perch covort with pink mao mao. Far from the turbulence of the shallows, gorgonian fans, black corals and finger sponges stretch out their long delicate arms in search of food. Nitrogen and helium are squeezed into our tissues and we can be but brief visitors here. On reaching our planned bottom time we immediately begin a steady ascent up through the clouds of mao mao and demoiselles. Decompression is our pennance for those precious minutes spent at depth. It is dull but until we've served our time we cannot escape the ocean without risk of torturing and maiming our gas saturated bodies. Thankfully, decompression is concluded unevetfully amd we're free to re-enter our home environment. On the way home, a distant blemish on the ocean's surface alerts us to a pod of frolicking dolphins. They swim beside the boat and several beautiful animals are soon riding the boat's bow wave. Beneath a glazed surface the dolphins twist and roll around eachother at ever increasing speed as Noel ups the throttle. Briefly, they're smoking along at 18 knots but can't sustain this for long and peel off one by one. |
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