I dove with Maria. Jo was the divemaster for our group. I was the only one with a camera. There were 9 divers and three "guides."Three of the divers were taking lessons, so Jo took the other six of us.
Our group was the first in this time, and Maria and I were the last pair in the water. Headed down the mooring line when all of our group was in. No problem with the camera today. I put fresh batteries in just before the dives, so I now know it was a battery problem last time.
We dropped right down to the bottom at the bow and did a circuit around the wreck near the bottom. Saw a little Whitemouth Moray Eel and a few Blue Dragon Nudibranchs which I got photos of. We then came up to the top of the wreck and did a circuit there as well. Maria just kind-of hung back a little and stayed a little higher in the water than me, so when I was about out of botton-time and my computer was beeping at me, she still had time left.
Whitemouth Moray Eel
Blue Dragon Nudibranch
Blue Dragon Nudibranch
Common Longnose Butterflyfish
Blue Dragon Nudibranch
As I started to ascend to avoid a deco-stop, she spotted a Kahuna Nudibranch. I dropped down and got a photo of it with my computer screaming at me. I only had 1 minute left at that depth. I immediately started to ascend again to the handrail depth and got two more minutes.
Kahuna Nudibranch
Just as I got there, Jo spotted a Commerson's Frogfish on the rail. I got one shot of it and then signaled that I was out of time and slowly started ascending.
Commerson's Frogfish
As I was ascending, suddenly a Spotted Eagle Ray showed up. I got one photo, but due to relatively poor visibility, the photo did not turn out well. Did a one-minute stop at mid-depth, 48-feet, and then did two three minute stops at 18-feet since we were doing two deep dives due to the poor visibility on the shallow sites. Hung out at 15-feet while Maria finished her stop and then slowly ascended and got out. This was my first dive ever where I ran out of bottom-time before I ran out of air!
During the surface interval today as we were moving from one dive site to another, suddenly a whale surfaced just off the port side of the boat. The Captain slowed down and we trailed the whale for more than a half hour. Most of the time we could see the "shadow" of the whale just under the surface 30-50 feet off the side of the boat.
Every few minutes it would come up for air and we all got some great shots of it!
After a while, it came even closer to the boat and was only about 20 feet away! Pretty awesome!
After about 35-40 minutes, it decided it had had enough of us and sounded and was gone.
Humpback Whale
For the second dive, I got all ready and giant strided into the water off the boat. As soon as I hit the water, I knew something wasn't right -- no fins. I felt like a dope! I swam back to the platform and got out and the Captain retrieved my fins and I went again.
The visibility was awful! The water was greenish and full of junk. Leaves and trash were everywhere. We descended and it got darker and darker, and on the bottom was like an evening dive. Visibility was 5-10 feet at best. I got my back-up light out and looked around at the coral wall. Took one photo of a Pebble Collector Urchin and then looked for Maria.
Pebble Collector Urchin
She was not willing to come over to the wall and so I went over to her. She was pretty apprehensive and was not moving -- just hanging in the water. By the time she calmed down, the rest of the group was gone. I couldn't see the wall at that point and we could not find the group or their bubbles.
At that point I decided to call the dive and Maria agreed, so we slowly ascended. Did a three minute open-water stop and then surfaced. We were about 100 yards from the boat, so we swam over and got out.
Good experience, but not a great dive. Maria thanked me for "saving" her once we were on the boat. She is a pretty experienced diver, but apparently had never seen visibility like this before. It was just like being in Blue Lake all over again!
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