I dove with Jen who was the divemaster for our group. I had a camera and a few others on the boat did as well. There were 18 divers and three "guides", so they paired up all the divers and the three guides each took a group.
Our group was the first in this time, and I was the first in the water. We congregated at the mooring line until all of our group was there and then descended. The site consists of a deep coral reef at about 80 feet. It forms a ledge, hence the name, and falls off to about 105 feet where the airplane wreck, or what is left of it rests. It has been dragged out to deeper water several times by big storms and they have gone and found it and drug it back. All that is left is the wings and they are in pretty bad shape.
Yellowmargin Moray Eel
I like being buddy with a divemaster. I don’t have to keep track of them, they seem to all have good air consumption, and they have become comfortable with my dive skills and don’t hover near. That is nice, since once in a while it takes a few minutes to get a decent photo and they just tend the crowd.
Pustulose Phyllidia Nudibranch
The mooring line is anchored to the edge of the reef ledge, so we congregated there. While we were waiting for the others, I got a couple of good photos of a large Yellowmargin Moray Eel in a hole in the edge of the reef. We swam over the edge and down to the wreck and poked around there and took a few photos and then headed back to the reef. Along the way, I checked out a little cave in the reef and found some Flameback Coral Shrimp and Banded Coral Shrimp. Back on the reef, we came upon a large Antler Coral that had been torn apart. There was a Sleepy Sponge Crab sitting in the top of it and a large Day Octopus at the base of it and a lot of fish circling around it.
Flameback Coral Shrimp
During my safety stop, I took several photos of bubbles rising from divers below as well as a couple of the divers below me near the bottom. The visibility was very good – about 70 feet.
Day Octopus
For the second dive, I giant strided in and we congregated again at the mooring line until all of our group was there and then dropped down to the wreck. When the group was all there, we went over the side and down to the bottom.
White-Margin Nudibranch
We made a slow “tour” of the hull from the bottom. I got several good photos – a Banded Coral Shrimp, a White-Margin Nudibranch, a Whitemouth Moray Eel, a Yellowmargin Moray Eel, and a Desirable Nudibranch.
Yellowmargin Moray Eel
After the tour, we headed up onto the top of the wreck and just looked around for things to see. I went back to the mast and got a better photo of Orange Cup Coral to replace the badly out of focus one I got on a previous dive. I also got several good photos of a Leaf Scorpionfish.
Desirable Nudibranch
When my computer was down to 3 minutes of no-decompression time left, I signaled to Jen that I was out of bottom time on my computer and started a slow ascent up the mast before switching to the mooring line for the remainder of the ascent. Just for kicks, I swam over to the hang-bar part way through my safety stop and used one of the regs there for a while.
Leaf Scorpionfish
4 comments:
nice photos
so, I have only had a chance to glance at the photos. I promise I will read it all later, probably tomorrow. It has been a crazy week trying to tie up so many loose ends before the weekend! Love ya! I also have a ton of blogging I need to catch up on.
That is the way I was last week. I had a lot I wanted to do to get caught up, but couldn't get to it until Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
We now hate our coral banded shrimp. Our Royal gramma disappeared and then a couple of days later we found our clown fish in the shrimp claws and it was eating it. It is a fish eating horrible little shrimp.
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