84 Dive

"Love you too, Mom. Yes, we'll go see you once we are back in town. Sure thing. Now, get some rest mom, you sound tired. Alright, I love you too. Later."

Lance hangs up the phone as we finish getting ready for the snorkeling guided tour. My phone dings with an email notification right as we're heading out the door.

"You want to check that really quick?" Lance asks before pulling the door shut.

I shrug, shaking my head, "No, I'll check it later. Let's go so we're there a little early to rent gear."

We take off towards the front desk where a golf cart will take us to the location we need to be. After we went through and found proper gear to rent, we joined the group of people starting to gather near by. Lance fidgeted with his go pro camera, trying to decide where he would attach it.

"Ia Orana!(Hello) I am Hauata, one of your guides today! Everyone speaks English here? Oui?" Hauata's smiling face scans the crowd, eyes widening in delight upon spotting me.

She goes over a quick safety instruction procedure on making sure our gear fit properly, water safety, not touching any of the wildlife unless she or one of the other two guides shows us first. Once done going over everything we all climbed aboard the boat that would take us a little farther out from the shore.

Hauata starts to divide the others into groups with the other guides, but keeps Lance and I in her group. Once we get to the spot, the first group is let out of the boat, while the rest of us stay on. Then a little farther out, the next, till finally out in the middle of the lagoon, and our group is let out.

Hauata reminds all of us, not to touch the coral or the fish unless we see her do so first. If for any reason we need or want out of the water, we need to blow our whistles that were given to us and wore around our necks. Once our masks were all confirmed on and working, she led us underwater to marvel at the beautiful coral and fish.

Coming up for air after a deeper dive, Lance swims up with me. "Wow, did you see those butterfly fish?!" He asks, wiping his face of water.

I nod, grinning, "Did you see the one that looked like it had a racoon face?"

Lance smiles, "Yes, how about that eel that kept poking his head out of its hole by that massive coral?"

"The spotted one, right?"

Lance nods as Hauata and the others surface as well, Hauata blowing her whistle in quick repetition. She's helping one of the swimmers stay afloat who's coughing up water and crying in pain.

"What happened?" I ask one of the others, who's watching with a pained expression.

The middle aged man looks to me and sighs, "She touched a spiny urchin on accident. Damn thing got her in the hand and she sucked in some sea water to boot."

I turn my attention back to Hauata and notice Lance has swam over and is calming the woman, helping Hauata keep her head above water. The boat makes it's way back to us after hearing the whistle, knowing something is wrong. The boat comes close to us and Hauata starts shouting in French to the boatmen, who are quick to put their hands out to help pull the woman on board.

They are quick to help her without grabbing her hand and are using the radio to talk to someone else.

"Sorry, everyone please get on. We need her to get medical treatment." Hauata urges everyone to exit the water.

We quickly climb on to see one of the boatmen pouring vinegar on a cloth and placing it loosely on the woman's hand, gently pouring some more as everyone settles on the boat. We rush back to the dock, where EMT's are there waiting for her.

The hurt woman is taken off the boat by the EMT's and taken into their care. Her companion exited the boat with her, making sure she received their items that had been left on the boat. The others on the boat, relieved that the crisis had been averted now turned to Hauata with curious eyes.

Hauata smiled awkwardly as she told the others, "We can take you to the others to join them. Two people will not be able to join though, as we are only allowed so many people to guide. Je suis désolée. (I am sorry.)"

I exchange a look with Lance and he gives me a slight nod, agreeing with my thoughts.

"We will stay back. Everyone else can go join the others." Hauata gave us grateful eyes as we stood and departed from the boat.

After the boat left, Hauata thanked us for volunteering to stay, as she had to fill out incident report papers for the company. She offered us a free tour later this afternoon, but we declined, telling her not to worry about it. She informs us it's Ari's birthday today and that if we were up for it, to come over for the party. She gave us the address and happily smiled as we took off back to our room.

After a quick outdoor shower to wash the salt off, we decided to go down to the beach and soak in some of the suns rays since we were still in our bathing suits. We stopped at out bungalow long enough to grab some sunblock and sunglasses, before making our way down to the beach.

We lay there next to each other talking about the different fish we saw and the sea turtle before the unfortunate accident.

"Smile for me, beautiful." Lance instructs me as he positions to take a picture with the go pro. I give him a sweet smile, quickly followed by a goofy one, sticking my tongue out at him.

"My turn." I exclaim, holding out my hand to take the camera.

Grumbling under his breath, he hands it over for me to take some pictures of him too, then us together. As the day moved on, we head back to the room and decide on whether we want to go to Ari's birthday party.

"We don't have to stay long. We can go wish him a happy birthday and then come back after a little while." I suggest, wanting to see how the locals enjoyed themselves on the island.

Lance nods, eyes lost in thought, before snapping back to the moment. "Alright, I suppose." He gives me brief smile before pulling out something to wear. "I feel like we should have packed more clothes than we did though..." He chuckles, taking note of how our dirty laundry was beginning to pile up.

"I'm pretty sure we can figure something out." I look at my own dwindling selection of clean clothes, knowing we'd have to figure something out tomorrow. I go look at the little hotel book and sigh in relief. "They have laundry service here, Lance. I think we will be fine."

Putting the book back, I turn and run my hands up his bare back, massaging his shoulders to elicit sighs and moans.

"Keep that up, we won't be going anywhere." Lance threatens me with another moan.

"Oh yeah?" I demurely ask, biting my bottom lip.

"Yeah," Lance turns and grabs me by my waist, "because I'll end up falling asleep, and the night is still young my dear." He purrs against my neck, making me yelp in anxious laughter the way it tickles.