Here is a link to a Youtube video shot by Kim from Texas. I was about 10 feet away from the action taking still pictures. In Cairns now waiting to go to the airport.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POCEwINP8W4
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
North Horn – Shark Feed
What a Hoot! This is the signature dive of the Spirit of Freedom. It is done at the North Horn of Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea. The same site as the last dive. At the end of the mooring line there is a kind of natural amphitheater in the side of the coral reef with a raised pillar of coral in the center. The tourist divers sit in a semi circle at 50feet and our Dive Masters set up a pulley system on the raised pillar where they will pull a garbage can full of Tuna heads down from the surface. That’s when the fun begins.
As soon as things start getting set up the sharks know what’s coming and they start cruising in. When the food flys, things get a bit crazy while about 40 sharks compete for the goodies.
One got himself wrapped up in the chain and had to thrash about to get free.
After the sharks are done gorging themselves on tuna, we swam out to get close to the stragglers. We still had a good bit of air so we finished the dive in the same area. My dive buddy Pascal, who is French and speaks very little English, communicates very well underwater. He found a little tunnel in the coral and we went in exploring and found the Giant Cod that was in about the sharks. He ran out of his home as we entered but after we realized we were at a dead end he was coming back in as we were going out. Made for some great pictures.
As soon as things start getting set up the sharks know what’s coming and they start cruising in. When the food flys, things get a bit crazy while about 40 sharks compete for the goodies.
All for now. It is Sunday and the last day of diving. We have already been to Steve's Bommie and expect the "DIVE TIME" call any minute now. I get inbound email but no outbound. Internet is spotty. Dont send me any large files. I have to pay for bandwidth and it takes forever. Dial up Speeds. Boat should dock at 5am on Monday (Aussie Time) Donna, See you soon. Miss you.
North Horn
Slept soundly on Friday night and woke around 6am. We were advised that it was important to be on time for this mornings dive. The North Horn site is at the northern tip of Osprey Reef. The tide had to be timed just right so we would not fight too much current getting onto the reef and be able to ride it back to the boat. The crew strung a 200 foot line at the surface to the reef so we could pull ourselves to the reef without getting swept away by the current. Good thing too, we needed that line. As we began the dive I looked down to see several reef sharks – 5-6 feet in length – swimming below us. Once on the reef we were between the reef and cruising sharks.
We swam north along the reef and down to a 100’ depth. Even at 100 feet there was plenty of blue water under us. They say the bottom is somewhere around 3-4000 meters. Not someplace you would want to go. The dive was short for a GBR live aboard dive, about 40 minutes instead of the usual hour. We spend more time at depth here and that will cause you to use more air. At about 100 bar, or 1000 psi we turned around and made our way back to the line. If you missed the line and came up off the reef, it would mean that they would have to send the tender boat out to get you. If they saw you that is. This is not a good place to get swept away as it would take the rescue helicopters a few hours to fly the 100 nautical miles to search for you. Even then they would not have much search time before having to head back to land.
On the way back to the boat we did our safety stops at 30 feet (two minutes) and 15 feet ( 5 minutes ). We did not even have to kick a fin to get back. The current pushed us right along with a loose grip on the rope.
On the way back to the boat we did our safety stops at 30 feet (two minutes) and 15 feet ( 5 minutes ). We did not even have to kick a fin to get back. The current pushed us right along with a loose grip on the rope.
Admiralty
Fourth dive of the day starts out at 40 feet with a swim through a long tunnel. Inside the tunnel there is an old anchor imbedded in the coral. I was diving with Kevin, another single diver on the boat and we were both following Claire, one of our dive guides. It is very easy to follow Claire as she goes slow and also has a noisy regulator, so even if you cant see her you can hear her. After the anchor there comes a fork in the tunnel.
The left fork dead ends while the right one gives you your exit. After the anchor I turned around to take some photo’s of Kim and Jay from Texas…. And found that they were behind another two divers. Just then I saw a four foot moray come out of a hole and swim past me. Tried to get a few photos’ but it was too dark and it did not come out.
Later in the dive we saw a 5 foot reef shark lying in the sand. This one did not spook too easily and I was able to lay down in the sand bottom and get quite close to it. I was happy to get that close to a shark. Little did I know what was coming.
The left fork dead ends while the right one gives you your exit. After the anchor I turned around to take some photo’s of Kim and Jay from Texas…. And found that they were behind another two divers. Just then I saw a four foot moray come out of a hole and swim past me. Tried to get a few photos’ but it was too dark and it did not come out.
Later in the dive we saw a 5 foot reef shark lying in the sand. This one did not spook too easily and I was able to lay down in the sand bottom and get quite close to it. I was happy to get that close to a shark. Little did I know what was coming.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Pixie Garden for Two Tanks
Pixie Garden for two tanks in the afternoon. We have heard from the Captain that we are going to try for the Coral Sea. I are really glad that Donna is safe and sound at the Hilton in Cairns. I want to get this post out before we go out of internet range. Posting two pictures. Here is that Shark from the first dive.
And a few Macro shots from the second dive.
Lizard Island
On Wednesday evening we moored in the Bay at Lizard Island. This allowed us a very calm and gentle sleep. After dinner, the Captain of the ship spent some time feeding a large Tawny Nurse Shark. It was about a six footer.
The crew broke out some extra wine and opened the ship’s gift shop so that people could purchase hats and stuff with the logo. Donna made the decision to leave the ship and fly back to Cairns on the small commuter plane. Thursday evening is when we will leave the protection of the GBR and head to the open sea. Our destination (if we make it) is Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea. It has been rough in the ribbon reefs and there is a chance we may not make it to the Coral Sea….. So I am glad that Donna decided to go.
Heard from Donna via email and she is going to stay at the Hilton in Cairns until I get off the boat. Then we can travel home together. We have another group of divers that joined the boat and are between dives at Pixie Garden. We saw a nice sized reef shark and his remora buddy. I will post those pictures soon. They are still in the camera which is still in the underwater housing and in the dunk tank on deck.
The crew broke out some extra wine and opened the ship’s gift shop so that people could purchase hats and stuff with the logo. Donna made the decision to leave the ship and fly back to Cairns on the small commuter plane. Thursday evening is when we will leave the protection of the GBR and head to the open sea. Our destination (if we make it) is Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea. It has been rough in the ribbon reefs and there is a chance we may not make it to the Coral Sea….. So I am glad that Donna decided to go.
Heard from Donna via email and she is going to stay at the Hilton in Cairns until I get off the boat. Then we can travel home together. We have another group of divers that joined the boat and are between dives at Pixie Garden. We saw a nice sized reef shark and his remora buddy. I will post those pictures soon. They are still in the camera which is still in the underwater housing and in the dunk tank on deck.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Lighthouse
The third dive of the day was at “Lighthouse”. The reason for the name is that the reef rises up from a max depth of 90 ft to within 5 feet of the surface. You start the dive by going to the bottom and then circle your way up. The bottom was full of Lionfish! Donna had to pull me out of the way of one of the baby lionfish while I was taking a picture of its daddy. The spines on the fish have a venom that will not kill you but will give you a pretty painful sting.
As we circled up we found a good size turtle that was very happy to pose for a few pictures. The current was ripping pretty good and quite a few divers were around trying to get a picture of him.
As we circled up we found a good size turtle that was very happy to pose for a few pictures. The current was ripping pretty good and quite a few divers were around trying to get a picture of him.
Pixie Pinacle and the Clownfish
We are two days out on the Spirit of Freedom and I have come to the realization that this little blog of mine is a mess. Yesterday I did four out of the five dives offered. I skipped the night dive because I was really tired. The first and second dives were at the world famous “Cod Hole” followed by Princess Bommie and Challenger Bay. You have already seen the pics of our Codfish pal. The seas were a bit rough on Tuesday and Donna was fighting the good fight… and losing. Fortunately, in the evening the sea flattened out like a pancake and we had a pleasant dinner followed by hitting the sack early. I was exhausted and slept soundly for the first time since getting to Australia.
On Wednesday morning we were the first ones up at 5:30 am. The crew of this boat does a very nice job of taking care of the divers. The food is fantastic and there is hot coffee available at the touch of a button. The sun played hide and seek all morning while we dove the Pixie Pinnacle site. Here is a picture of the dive boat
We saw tons of Clownfish and Anemones on this dive. Got what is so far the picture of the trip.
So with 4-5 dives a day and fiddling around with Photoshop and spotty Internet access....... it's tough posting things on a regular basis. I have realized that it is pretty silly to bitch about spotty internet access while on a boat at sea. So, here are the first part of today's posts. I hope you enjoy them!
On Wednesday morning we were the first ones up at 5:30 am. The crew of this boat does a very nice job of taking care of the divers. The food is fantastic and there is hot coffee available at the touch of a button. The sun played hide and seek all morning while we dove the Pixie Pinnacle site. Here is a picture of the dive boat
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday March 23, 2010
Guest post by Donna. The food is fabulous but the seas are rough (so for those who know me, this is not a good combination). Although as I’m writing this Neptune has finally decided so take pity and the seas have calmed down a bit and so has my stomach. Gregg has been on four dives so far today. I’ve done every other but we’re both planning on doing the night dive. I finally saw my first white tipped reef shark and a big old nurse shark parked itself right under the boat. There are new corals and fish species here. Hugh clams with extravagant lips reminiscent of Seymour on Little Shop of Horrors.
Today we found a new best friend Cod fish whom we’ve named Cyril the Cod. He was expecting perhaps a meal and kept nudging right up to us and patiently posing for pictures in hopes that one would appear.
On my last dive Gregg decided not to take the camera so of course we saw the coolest cuttle fish and then I found these three shrimp that looked liked psychedelic grasshoppers. Even our dive master had not seen these before. Alas, no camera, no photo and perhaps it was a new species would have named the crazy grasshopper shrimp. There are some nice folks on the boat so the company is good. Well that’s it for today. We’ll be out of range later in the week but hope to get some more pictures before then.
Monday March 22, 2010
Easy morning. We got ourselves packed and went for a bit of breakfast. Yesterday, while walking around Cairns, I was interviewed by the local paper. They wanted to know if I had been concerned about Cyclone Ului. I let them know that I had been tracking that thing for about the last two weeks from the states. They seemed surprised. (More on this later)
The folks from the Spirit of Freedom picked us up around 11:30 am for a 12 noon departure. We have 14 divers / guests on board and a crew of 10. We headed north up the coast to Jorgi’s Reef for a couple of shakeout dives. Some of these pictures are out of order but I cant post without at least one picture.
Easy morning. We got ourselves packed and went for a bit of breakfast. Yesterday, while walking around Cairns, I was interviewed by the local paper. They wanted to know if I had been concerned about Cyclone Ului. I let them know that I had been tracking that thing for about the last two weeks from the states. They seemed surprised. (More on this later)
The folks from the Spirit of Freedom picked us up around 11:30 am for a 12 noon departure. We have 14 divers / guests on board and a crew of 10. We headed north up the coast to Jorgi’s Reef for a couple of shakeout dives. Some of these pictures are out of order but I cant post without at least one picture.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
First Day in Cairns!
Saturday March 20th
I was actually able to sleep through the whole night and think I am “turned around” jet lag wise. Donna took a swim this morning in a pool just off the ocean across the street from our hotel room. Then we rented a car and headed out in search of the elusive Koala bears. (we were too chicken to go looking for crocs) Driving in Australia is interesting. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car, but that makes a perverted kind of sense because you drive on the wrong side of the road.
It was in interesting time. We drove about 25 km north of town and took a tram to a Kuranda Village. We had a nice lunch and found the Koala’s. We also found some snakes and kangaroos.
We drove up to Port Douglas (about 65km) and back to enjoy the scenic drive. Well, kind of… Donna was having vision problems due to salty eyes from here morning swim and I was too terrified to take my eyes off the road for even a second. We did stop at a scenic outlook for a while. Crossing our fingers that the weather holds and the boat trip is nice and easy.
All in all this was a great day. It is about 8pm as I write this and tomorrow we are due to board the Spirit of Freedom to dive the Great Barrier Reef. I will have to hit the local McDonalds for breakfast and to get internet access to upload these posts. Yes, our hotel does have internet but they charge you for it by the hour… and its just the principle of the thing. So a block and a half walk to Micky D’s is in the cards in the morning. Hope things go smooth with access on the boat so I can get regular posts up over the next few days.
I was actually able to sleep through the whole night and think I am “turned around” jet lag wise. Donna took a swim this morning in a pool just off the ocean across the street from our hotel room. Then we rented a car and headed out in search of the elusive Koala bears. (we were too chicken to go looking for crocs) Driving in Australia is interesting. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car, but that makes a perverted kind of sense because you drive on the wrong side of the road.
It was in interesting time. We drove about 25 km north of town and took a tram to a Kuranda Village. We had a nice lunch and found the Koala’s. We also found some snakes and kangaroos.
We drove up to Port Douglas (about 65km) and back to enjoy the scenic drive. Well, kind of… Donna was having vision problems due to salty eyes from here morning swim and I was too terrified to take my eyes off the road for even a second. We did stop at a scenic outlook for a while. Crossing our fingers that the weather holds and the boat trip is nice and easy.
All in all this was a great day. It is about 8pm as I write this and tomorrow we are due to board the Spirit of Freedom to dive the Great Barrier Reef. I will have to hit the local McDonalds for breakfast and to get internet access to upload these posts. Yes, our hotel does have internet but they charge you for it by the hour… and its just the principle of the thing. So a block and a half walk to Micky D’s is in the cards in the morning. Hope things go smooth with access on the boat so I can get regular posts up over the next few days.
A tale of Two Cyclones!
Good News! Donna and I beat Hurricane … er… Cyclone Ului to Cairns Australia!
I left home and headed for JFK airport to begin an almost 30 hour series of flights to Cairns Australia. I have to say the the Qantas airlines people were great. The food was good and we flew a 747, so even in coach it was reasonable comfortable. BUT…… spending that amount of time in an airplane was a bit tough. Five hours to LA, two hour layover, Fourteen hours to Sydney, another two hour layover but this time customs and a change to the domestic side of Sydney airport instead of just sitting around, and then another 3 hours flight to Cairns. I did meet some very nice people but I think I would rather have met Mr. Spock…. Next time just BEAM ME OVER THERE!
When I arrived at the Hotel Donna had already spent a day in Cairns. She had our dinner and show reservations already made. I had vowed not to sleep until at least 9pm, but knew I would never be able to stay awake for the show, so I grabbed a power nap before heading out. We saw a magician named Sam Powers, sat second row in a very small theater and had a great time. Here is a picture from our hotel balcony of the Casino that the show was in.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sometimes Life Just Happens!
I have been into Scuba Diving for most of my life. My Dad was crazy into the sport and taught me when I was very young. He bought a small tank about a foot long that was just the right size for me and tossed me off the end of the dock at Lake George NY. When I was in my late teens, I took a PADI certification course and started diving New Jersey shipwrecks. Then it was off to the Caribbean and other "clear water" locations. Fortunately for me, my wife Donna, and now my son Alex, also love to scuba dive. And, for years, it has been a dream of ours to dive the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Last week Donna got the news that she has to go to Sydney Australia on a business trip. Hmmmm.... Sydney is only a 3 hour flight from Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, so why not go now?
And that is why we (just Donna and me, i am afraid) are headed to the Great Barrier Reef to spend a week aboard the "Spirit of Freedom dive boat. We board on March 22nd. And for the following week will be diving with Potato Codfish and Sharks.
I hope you all enjoy following along. My camera is all set and I plan to post the best pictures. Donna will be guest blogging now and again as evidenced by the huge uptick in writing quality and absence of spelling errors. I will post again in a few days with some more information about the dives we expect to do. Hope you all enjoy the trip and thanks for putting up with me! :-)
Last week Donna got the news that she has to go to Sydney Australia on a business trip. Hmmmm.... Sydney is only a 3 hour flight from Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, so why not go now?
And that is why we (just Donna and me, i am afraid) are headed to the Great Barrier Reef to spend a week aboard the "Spirit of Freedom dive boat. We board on March 22nd. And for the following week will be diving with Potato Codfish and Sharks.
I hope you all enjoy following along. My camera is all set and I plan to post the best pictures. Donna will be guest blogging now and again as evidenced by the huge uptick in writing quality and absence of spelling errors. I will post again in a few days with some more information about the dives we expect to do. Hope you all enjoy the trip and thanks for putting up with me! :-)
Friday, May 1, 2009
Atlantis
We had a great first dive with about 80 feet max and almost an hour bottom time. At this site, called Atlantis and very near to the windsufing school, we were in for more of the same. About 70 feet, again for almost an hour. This is another White Spotted Filefish.
This fish was actually pretty big (maybe 2 feet) but the coral he was swimming by was even bigger so he looks like a regular-sized fish. No identification on this one.
This balloon fish was very aggrevating (they allegedly puff up when threatened but I've never seen that happen). He kept us company along the reef but always just out of reach of a close-up. If we swam faster, so did he.
What's that thing in the reef with the big shiny teeth - it's a Moray!
Believe it or not, this is called a Flamingo Tongue nudibranch. They are only a couple of inches long and a bit hard to find.
Dinner anyone? Actually, someone beat us to it. This has got to be the biggest lobster we've ever seen.
This fish was actually pretty big (maybe 2 feet) but the coral he was swimming by was even bigger so he looks like a regular-sized fish. No identification on this one.
This balloon fish was very aggrevating (they allegedly puff up when threatened but I've never seen that happen). He kept us company along the reef but always just out of reach of a close-up. If we swam faster, so did he.
What's that thing in the reef with the big shiny teeth - it's a Moray!
Believe it or not, this is called a Flamingo Tongue nudibranch. They are only a couple of inches long and a bit hard to find.
Dinner anyone? Actually, someone beat us to it. This has got to be the biggest lobster we've ever seen.
Well, that does it for diving on Bonaire. Tomorrow we head for home.
Last Dives on Bonaire!
Guest Blogger...Donna!
Our 2nd to last dive was at White Slave. There are tiny (I mean tiny) concrete 5'x 3' huts that the slaves used to sleep in back in the day before they automated salt removal from the island flats. Now the mountains of salt travel by conveyor belt right out to the sea where they are dumped into cargo boats for transport, processing and your local grocer.
This black angel fish had no fear at all and seemed to want to hold a conversation.
After hardly seeing any morays during the week we ran across three or four black spotted morays today. That was a good thing because the population had a blight last fall and the morays took a big hit. This guy was a real cutie.
Another spotted Eagle Ray swam by. They like to cruise up and down the reef looking for something interesting to see...kind of what we do too.
You may think these are coral growing out of the sand but they are really garden eels that come up out of their holes and wave around hoping something tasty swims by. This is actually known as an 'eel garden' and there were dozens of them in this garden.
When you swim too close they get shy and retreat into their hole. Alex used the zoom on the camera to get this picture of these two peeking out to see if we were gone yet.
I think this is a yellow perch. Gregg likes to photograph these guys.
This one looked like the younger brother to the big moray we saw at the other end of the reef.
Today was also flounder day. We saw three of them in a row. They are hard to spot since they are completely flat (except for their googly eyes) and change color to camoflauge with the the sea floor. I chased one around for a while...thinking of how good he would taste for dinner... and Alex almost stepped on this one as we were exiting the dive.
And here is a picture of our trusty truck and the slave huts. I told you they were small.
At the end of this dive it was about 9am, we need to wait about an hour before diving our last dive of the trip. That dive will be at Atlantis.
Our 2nd to last dive was at White Slave. There are tiny (I mean tiny) concrete 5'x 3' huts that the slaves used to sleep in back in the day before they automated salt removal from the island flats. Now the mountains of salt travel by conveyor belt right out to the sea where they are dumped into cargo boats for transport, processing and your local grocer.
This black angel fish had no fear at all and seemed to want to hold a conversation.
After hardly seeing any morays during the week we ran across three or four black spotted morays today. That was a good thing because the population had a blight last fall and the morays took a big hit. This guy was a real cutie.
Another spotted Eagle Ray swam by. They like to cruise up and down the reef looking for something interesting to see...kind of what we do too.
You may think these are coral growing out of the sand but they are really garden eels that come up out of their holes and wave around hoping something tasty swims by. This is actually known as an 'eel garden' and there were dozens of them in this garden.
When you swim too close they get shy and retreat into their hole. Alex used the zoom on the camera to get this picture of these two peeking out to see if we were gone yet.
I think this is a yellow perch. Gregg likes to photograph these guys.
This one looked like the younger brother to the big moray we saw at the other end of the reef.
Today was also flounder day. We saw three of them in a row. They are hard to spot since they are completely flat (except for their googly eyes) and change color to camoflauge with the the sea floor. I chased one around for a while...thinking of how good he would taste for dinner... and Alex almost stepped on this one as we were exiting the dive.
And here is a picture of our trusty truck and the slave huts. I told you they were small.
At the end of this dive it was about 9am, we need to wait about an hour before diving our last dive of the trip. That dive will be at Atlantis.
Hilma Hooker
After showering off the salt back at the Inn.... Alex and I decided to head back out to dive the Hilma Hooker again. Our mission was to get some ego shots around the wreck. When we pulled up there was a German couple just finishing up the dive. I asked how the vis was and they said good. I guess they are used to diving in some crappy water because the visability was not that good. Less than a few days ago when we dove here. We did manage to get some good shots though.
I lowered myself into a closed hatchway for this shot.
And we did some near the prop as well.
The water was a bit stirred up but these came out pretty well. We headed up the reef to finish the dive. Max depth was 80 and we only planned to stay around 30 minutes total. On the way up the reef I was chasing an Angel fish trying to get a decent picture of him... he swam over some coral and a turtle was coming the other way.
So, with the Angel fish forgotten, We spent about 5 minutes shooting this little guy.
He was a juvenile loggerhead. About 15 inches long in total from beak to the tips of his back flippers.
At first he seems a bit distressed at all the attention. He even got hung up in some soft coral. It would have been easy to reach out and catch him, but I didn't have the heart. I think that might be illegal here too.
After a while he kind of got used to us and was even a bit curious.
This little guy definitely made our dive! After this we went back and did a night dive off the Carib Inn and then watched some TV and dranks some Corona's with lime. I always used to make fun of my cousin Matt because he likes Corona's ... now they are kind of growing on me.
I lowered myself into a closed hatchway for this shot.
And we did some near the prop as well.
The water was a bit stirred up but these came out pretty well. We headed up the reef to finish the dive. Max depth was 80 and we only planned to stay around 30 minutes total. On the way up the reef I was chasing an Angel fish trying to get a decent picture of him... he swam over some coral and a turtle was coming the other way.
So, with the Angel fish forgotten, We spent about 5 minutes shooting this little guy.
He was a juvenile loggerhead. About 15 inches long in total from beak to the tips of his back flippers.
At first he seems a bit distressed at all the attention. He even got hung up in some soft coral. It would have been easy to reach out and catch him, but I didn't have the heart. I think that might be illegal here too.
After a while he kind of got used to us and was even a bit curious.
This little guy definitely made our dive! After this we went back and did a night dive off the Carib Inn and then watched some TV and dranks some Corona's with lime. I always used to make fun of my cousin Matt because he likes Corona's ... now they are kind of growing on me.
All for now... it's about 6:30 on Friday, time to get the gear going for our final day of diving.
Red Slave
The entry at Red Slave was a bit tricky as the waves kept rolling in. We had to get out about 20 feet away from shore before we could even thing about putting our fins on. We were on a mission to find the Seahorse and we had to "travel" underwater about 30 minutes along the reef and then be at a depth of 36 feet where he lived among a lot of soft coral.
We moved along the reef a a pretty good clip. Going the distance that we had planned would make the dive about an hour long and leave us pretty low on air at the end. I was not really concerned as we were heading into the current, so if air ran low we could just surface and drift back to where our truck was. Here is another one of those pretty tube sponges. They are nice to take pictures of because the don't move or bite.
Not sure what kind of fish this is... but he was not moving either so I had a chance to get all the settings on the camera working properly for a nice shot.
We never did find the silly Seahorse. We were told he was in a group of soft wavy Coral at 36 feet...... This site is filled with soft coral. Like a forest. Anyway.... we headed back and ran into this fellow on the way.
This Green Moray was about 6-8 feet long and was entwined in the coral. He was very interested in the fish swimming by - looking for the right one to make into lunch. We were very happy to see him. He was not so happy to see us...
As you can see he is a handsome fellow. He was patient with us taking pictures of him for a while.
And he got tired of being photographed and tucked back into the coral. Gregg followed him and shoved the camera in for a few last shots and Alex and Donna waited to see if Gregg would be lunch.
We moved along the reef a a pretty good clip. Going the distance that we had planned would make the dive about an hour long and leave us pretty low on air at the end. I was not really concerned as we were heading into the current, so if air ran low we could just surface and drift back to where our truck was. Here is another one of those pretty tube sponges. They are nice to take pictures of because the don't move or bite.
Not sure what kind of fish this is... but he was not moving either so I had a chance to get all the settings on the camera working properly for a nice shot.
We never did find the silly Seahorse. We were told he was in a group of soft wavy Coral at 36 feet...... This site is filled with soft coral. Like a forest. Anyway.... we headed back and ran into this fellow on the way.
This Green Moray was about 6-8 feet long and was entwined in the coral. He was very interested in the fish swimming by - looking for the right one to make into lunch. We were very happy to see him. He was not so happy to see us...
As you can see he is a handsome fellow. He was patient with us taking pictures of him for a while.
And he got tired of being photographed and tucked back into the coral. Gregg followed him and shoved the camera in for a few last shots and Alex and Donna waited to see if Gregg would be lunch.
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