There was a swell that had come in and stirred up the bottom on the shallow reefs, so we did two deep dives instead of a deep and a shallow. I dove with Jody. I had a camera as did most of the other divers. There were 13 divers and two "guides," so they paired up all the divers and the two guides each took a group.
Sculptured Slipper Lobster
Our group was the last in this time, and Jody and I were the last in the water. We got in just at dusk, grouped at the mooring line and headed down to the bottom. Jody was a little slow coming down so we ended up a little behind the group. Consequently, most of what I saw was already spooked or I had to look around where the group had just left to see if I could figure out what they were looking at. I did manage to get a few good photos.
Manybar Goatfish
When I had about 1200 psi left, Jody tapped me on the shoulder and showed me his guage. He was under 500 psi. Jen wasn't close by to reassign buddies, so I ascended with him and did a safety stop. He surfaced before my stop was done, since I suspect he was out of air. I still had 1000 psi when I got back on the boat.
Sleepy Sponge Crab
Either he had problems equalizing on the way down, or as he stated, had a squeeze on the way back up, but he was in pain from his left ear on the boat and then got seasick. That ended his night of diving.
After dinner, we got ready for the second dive. I was buddies with Jen, so I was the first from our group in the water. Just as I was getting in, one of the other divers discovered his first stage was leaking air, so they had to change that out. That delayed us a while. Then one gal got to the mooring line and her weight belt broke, so she had to get out and get new weights. The rest of us in the group just hung out in the water and watched the stars. They were gorgeous and there was little wind and no current so it was like floating in a warm bath watching the stars. The extended surface interval actually was good since it extended our bottom time for the dive.
Thomas's Urchin
Being buddies with Jen was good because it meant I was on the point of attack for this dive and saw pretty much everything. We did a lap of the top of the landing craft and then swam through it. There wasn't a lot to see except for several Desirable Nudibranchs. I got three photos of them, but was too close and they are all blurry. Sad. At the back end of the LCU, we discovered a large Commerson's Frogfish hanging out on the railing. They grow to about 15 inches and this one was all of that. It was huge. I got several photos of it, some of which are pretty good.
Commerson's Frogfish
We then went over the side and down to the bottom to check out a bunch of z-blocks that are near the LCU. Jen kept finding stuff in the open water and shining her light on it. It was really cool. We saw some Flameback Coral Shrimp and a Regal Slipper Lobster and then we went back to the LCU.
Regal Slipper Lobster
I found a Day Octopus in a hole in a handrail and everyone came and looked at it. I also found a Black-Lipped Pearl Oyster and took a few more photos of the frogfish. Jen's computer was a little more conservative than the rest of ours, so right after the octopus, she ascended and I stayed with Al and Rich until we were forced by our computers to leave as well.
Day Octopus
2 comments:
Wow it sounds like this was a rather eventful dive trip, both of them. I can see why you were so tired afterwards, there is a definate advantage to going down first isn't there?
Being first in the water is a definite advantage as far as seeing things. An even bigger deal though is keeping up with the group. The divemasters know where the critters like to hang out and so they check out those places and point things out.
You can sometimes find things they don't such as the octopus and the oyster, but not very often.
Both dives had a little drama. The first guy was just dumb. He hadn't dived in quite a while and pushed it too far when he was equalizing. It would have been better to abort than do what he did. Now he will have to recover. The second dive was just a comedy of errors, caused mostly by people being overconfident. Both of them were very experienced and just didn't check out their gear well enough.
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