We had a busy day today. Three dives, a couple hours exploring the south end of the island and a great pizza dinner next door at Captain Don’s.
The day started out a bit iffy with some very heavy rain but when you are planning on getting into the ocean a little rain water is hardly a deterrent! Our first destination today was a site called Oil Slick. It didn’t sound too great...but was a very cool site. The entry required a giant stride off the cliff overhanging the ocean and an 10 foot drop into the water. Yes, there was a ladder nearby but who wants to use that when you can make a big splash! :-) We saw lots of pretty coral, sponges and fish on this dive. The tricky part was climbing the ladder on the way out...there was a rung missing! Luckily Patrick was already out and was there to give us a hand :-).
Our second site was the infamous 1000 Steps site. While it isn’t really 1000 steps down to the ocean it sure feels like there is when you are walking back up with all of your gear on! We all made it though and boy was it worth it. We saw some really cool stuff on this dive...a great little turtle who humoured the paparazzi, little shrimp, big lobster, a little eel that wanted to show us his tonsils and right before we were back at the exit point we got a couple shots of an octopus. They are truly the masters of camouflage!
After the dives we had some lunch at the pool bar and then headed out to do a bit of exploration on the island. We were looking for the donkeys and flamingos we’d heard so much about. We found the donkeys but couldn’t get anywhere near the flamingos we saw so no pics of them. We saw a herd of goats as well but they are very suspicious of a vehicle slowing down near them and bolted for the cover of the bushes before I could get a pick of them all. We saw some windsurfers and the salt ‘factory’ on our travels as well as a rather scary looking amusement park! We saw most of the southern part of the island but had to head back to the condo to get ready for our night dive.
The night dive was great. It was a bit different from the one we did last night. Wade and I split off from the herd and went off on our own tonight and had a great time with just our two lights in the darkness. We saw a huge puffer, lots of little shrimp and fire worms. The giant Tarpon that escorted us last night chose to go with the bigger group so we didn’t have to worry about them coming to eat whatever we put our lights on :-). We saw a large eel on our way back a whole bunch of creepy starfish. I’ll have to look them up because they sure aren’t the big puffy west coast starfish that I know. I still haven’t figured out how to get my camera under there for the night dives....not enough hands for everything....but Wade has been taking video of the night dives so we’ll have cool footage to share.
After our last dive we cleaned up and headed next door to Captain Don’s for PIZZA! Now...it’s late...and the alarm is going to come early for another fun filled day of diving...stay tuned :-)
The day started out a bit iffy with some very heavy rain but when you are planning on getting into the ocean a little rain water is hardly a deterrent! Our first destination today was a site called Oil Slick. It didn’t sound too great...but was a very cool site. The entry required a giant stride off the cliff overhanging the ocean and an 10 foot drop into the water. Yes, there was a ladder nearby but who wants to use that when you can make a big splash! :-) We saw lots of pretty coral, sponges and fish on this dive. The tricky part was climbing the ladder on the way out...there was a rung missing! Luckily Patrick was already out and was there to give us a hand :-).
Our second site was the infamous 1000 Steps site. While it isn’t really 1000 steps down to the ocean it sure feels like there is when you are walking back up with all of your gear on! We all made it though and boy was it worth it. We saw some really cool stuff on this dive...a great little turtle who humoured the paparazzi, little shrimp, big lobster, a little eel that wanted to show us his tonsils and right before we were back at the exit point we got a couple shots of an octopus. They are truly the masters of camouflage!
After the dives we had some lunch at the pool bar and then headed out to do a bit of exploration on the island. We were looking for the donkeys and flamingos we’d heard so much about. We found the donkeys but couldn’t get anywhere near the flamingos we saw so no pics of them. We saw a herd of goats as well but they are very suspicious of a vehicle slowing down near them and bolted for the cover of the bushes before I could get a pick of them all. We saw some windsurfers and the salt ‘factory’ on our travels as well as a rather scary looking amusement park! We saw most of the southern part of the island but had to head back to the condo to get ready for our night dive.
The night dive was great. It was a bit different from the one we did last night. Wade and I split off from the herd and went off on our own tonight and had a great time with just our two lights in the darkness. We saw a huge puffer, lots of little shrimp and fire worms. The giant Tarpon that escorted us last night chose to go with the bigger group so we didn’t have to worry about them coming to eat whatever we put our lights on :-). We saw a large eel on our way back a whole bunch of creepy starfish. I’ll have to look them up because they sure aren’t the big puffy west coast starfish that I know. I still haven’t figured out how to get my camera under there for the night dives....not enough hands for everything....but Wade has been taking video of the night dives so we’ll have cool footage to share.
After our last dive we cleaned up and headed next door to Captain Don’s for PIZZA! Now...it’s late...and the alarm is going to come early for another fun filled day of diving...stay tuned :-)
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