Sunset from the boat.
The sunset as we were grearing up for the first dive was spectacular! I dove with Dean. We both had cameras as did most of the other divers. There were 6 divers and two "guides", so they paired up all the divers and the two guides each took a group.
Our group was the first in this time, and Dean and I were the first in the water. We got in just at dusk and headed down the mooring line to the bottom. As we were nearing the bottom, there was a 5 foot long Whitetip Reef Shark circling around right underneath us. It quickly hid back in one of the caves, though, so I did not get a photo. The current was pretty strong as we descended. We swam around the edge of the reef looking in the caves at fish, moray eels and other critters. It was very difficult to hold still long enough to get a photo of anything. I snapped several photos but none of them turned out.
2 Speckled Scorpionfish & Sculptured Slipper Lobster - see the eyes?
We came up to the top of the reef to see what was happening up there and immediately came upon a Sculptured Slipper Lobster. It was the only thing I managed to get a somewhat decent photo of. The current at the top was raging by this point. It took nearly full effort with the fins just to hold position. One gal, Susan, had a bad knee and needed Jenn's help pushing her just to get to the mooring line.
With all that effort, we burned through the remaining air really quickly and had to ascend. During my safety stop, while I was hanging on the line like a flag in the breeze, I turned my light off. There was plenty of light from the boat's lights. There was a lot of phosphorescence (little tiny creatures that glow whenever they are disturbed) in the water and any time one would hit me or the mooring line or someone else, they would glow, so it looked like fireflies all around us. Really cool.
After dinner, we got ready for the second dive. I giant strided in and dropped down to the bottom. There was essentially no current. This was just a big group thing with all of us discovering stuff and pointing it out to everyone so we could all see and get photos. We only moved about 100 feet during the entire dive.
Lots of octopus and scorpionfish of various varieties. Also, several crabs and Banded Coral Shrimp. We saw one Harlequin Shrimp, but it was hiding under a ledge and was difficult to photograph.
Hawaiian Starry Octopus
Banded Coral Shrimp
Day Octopus
Hawaiian Green Lionfish & Bloody Hermit Crab
Decoy Scorpionfish
Red Pencil Urchin
Ornate Octopus
Everyone was really excited about the dive afterwards and we spent the whole ride back talking about it. As we were pulling into the slip at the dock, someone had left a mooring line in the water and in the dark, the captain could not see it and it fouled the propeller. So when he switched it into reverse, to stop our forward movement, the engine died and we hit the rocks with the bow of the boat. We were going slow and the rocks are fairly smooth so there was no damage, but Jen had to suit back up and go clear the line from the prop. Pretty exciting end to the dive trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment