An ad you can actually believe

Those of you who have read other entries on this blog will recall that my previous camera gave up the ghost while I was snorkelling with it at the Meyer Islands. Somewhat aggrieved that it did not live up to its claim of being waterproof to 10m, I gave it a good bagging and then replaced it with a later model.
This camera was advertised in NZ with some delightful footage of a slobbering great dog wolfing it down, and it re-emerging unscathed from the dog's darkest recesses with a stunning visual record of its adventures.
Today we celebrated a sunny sky and glistening blue sea with another visit to Bigboy, the giant grouper who hangs out at Fishing Rock with his harem. We took with us some long-expired frozen fish so we could feed the big fella.

Gaye and Bigboy

A metre-long Kingfish joined in the fun underwater and Bigboy was his usual friendly self, nuzzling up to wetsuits, chasing away his girls and allowing himself to be stroked and patted. Our frozen fish disappeared all too quickly, and one by one the others got out to dry themselves off.

Gaye, Bigboy and kingfish

I was about to join them, having taken my full quota of photos, when Bigboy made another lazy, close pass at me and I watched his big jaw crank itself open wide enough to swallow a football. Completely unperturbed, he glooped down my shiny new Olympus Tough camera!

That camera looks tasty!

The good news was that the camera had a piece of webbing attached to it, and that cord was looped securely around my neck. Wait – hang on! Maybe that good news wasn’t quite so good; I was now being dragged along by the neck, underwater, by a very large fish.

Luckily Bigboy is so gentle he let me grab hold of him, prise open his jaws, unhitch the cord from his retroflex needle-teeth and extricate my camera from his oesophagus by pulling backwards away from him.

I’m not sure which of us was more relieved, but this camera lived to shoot another day!