We had a really full day of dives yesterday that had us busy from 7:30 am when we met for breakfast until 11:00 pm when we got back to our room after a late late dinner.
We had an awesome first two dives with an excellent captain (Mike) and dive master (Vinny).
The first dive was at Pawi and it was FULL of fish. This was a protected area where no collecting of fish was allowed...and it showed...there were millions of fish everywhere and they were not shy! Not long after the start of the dive we were treated to the sounds of whales singing. It is truly an amazing experience to be in the water hand hearing that music. Very cool! We were enjoying a great dive when our dive leader Vinny signaled Monica to follow him...the rest of us hung out with the fishes thinking he was taking her though a swim through...but much to our delight a minute or so later they both appeared giving the SHARK hand signal! We quickly swam up to see and sure enough there was a bit of an overhang and underneath there were 4 GREAT WHITE tip sharks swimming around under there! We dropped down and grabbed on to rocks on the bottom so we could be still and watch the sharks. It was tough to stay in one spot with the surge pushing you back and forth but it was worth scraping off a few fingerprints to get some pics of these beauties. Soon it was time to head up as our air was running low…we were sad to see the dive end.
Our second dive was at Suck ‘em Up! During the dive briefing our fearless leader explained that it was named that way because of the under water formations that you can swim in and out of but if you aren’t careful…and if the surge is strong…you can get sucked right up and launched out the top of the tube and splattered on the rocks…at which point the captain will shout ‘Please get back in the water!’…LOL. Sounded like a fun exciting dive, right? We were also warned to watch for the ‘champagne bubbles’ as they are a pretty good indication that you are about to be launched skyward. Wheeee. As exciting as this all sounded on the boat it didn’t amount to much as there was a bit too much surge to risk the entry so we enjoyed a great dive with lots of fish and….ANOTHER SHARK! Yep, Vinny our shark whisperer found us a beautiful one that was kind enough to give us a couple of close up photo ops. Awesome!
On our way back in to the marina the spinner dolphins gave us a nice show to welcome us back. It doesn’t get much better than this!
We were quick to hop in our vehicles to get back to the resort to quickly charge our batteries and download our memory cards and grab some lunch before heading back to the marina to be ready for our twilight and night (Manta) dives!
As we headed out of the marina we were treated to a hump back whale show…there were about four of them that were at the surface! Awesome!
Our twilight dive was at a location called Freeze Face…named because of a fresh water outlet that is substantially colder than the salt water…luckily we didn’t find it…so my face didn’t freeze J. This was a good dive but our new dive master Mike was a bit of a speed demon…his interpretation of a nice slow dive was quite bit different than ours!
Next it was time for the long anticipated MANTA DIVE! The weather was a bit questionable and it was raining a bit. We saw a few boats heading back from the north dive sites so our crew decided to stay where we were and try to attract the mantas to us rather than risk a rough site where we’d have to abort…so we tied up to our sister boat who was also out for a manta dive and waited for dark. Sadly…no mantas came…so we did a nice night dive and saw some cool critters but were disappointed that we didn’t get mantas. The shop offered us 50% off a ‘do over’ trip so we are signed up for another try on Friday J.
After we had our feet back on shore it was time for some dinner…then off to bed! We were pooped!
We had an awesome first two dives with an excellent captain (Mike) and dive master (Vinny).
The first dive was at Pawi and it was FULL of fish. This was a protected area where no collecting of fish was allowed...and it showed...there were millions of fish everywhere and they were not shy! Not long after the start of the dive we were treated to the sounds of whales singing. It is truly an amazing experience to be in the water hand hearing that music. Very cool! We were enjoying a great dive when our dive leader Vinny signaled Monica to follow him...the rest of us hung out with the fishes thinking he was taking her though a swim through...but much to our delight a minute or so later they both appeared giving the SHARK hand signal! We quickly swam up to see and sure enough there was a bit of an overhang and underneath there were 4 GREAT WHITE tip sharks swimming around under there! We dropped down and grabbed on to rocks on the bottom so we could be still and watch the sharks. It was tough to stay in one spot with the surge pushing you back and forth but it was worth scraping off a few fingerprints to get some pics of these beauties. Soon it was time to head up as our air was running low…we were sad to see the dive end.
Our second dive was at Suck ‘em Up! During the dive briefing our fearless leader explained that it was named that way because of the under water formations that you can swim in and out of but if you aren’t careful…and if the surge is strong…you can get sucked right up and launched out the top of the tube and splattered on the rocks…at which point the captain will shout ‘Please get back in the water!’…LOL. Sounded like a fun exciting dive, right? We were also warned to watch for the ‘champagne bubbles’ as they are a pretty good indication that you are about to be launched skyward. Wheeee. As exciting as this all sounded on the boat it didn’t amount to much as there was a bit too much surge to risk the entry so we enjoyed a great dive with lots of fish and….ANOTHER SHARK! Yep, Vinny our shark whisperer found us a beautiful one that was kind enough to give us a couple of close up photo ops. Awesome!
On our way back in to the marina the spinner dolphins gave us a nice show to welcome us back. It doesn’t get much better than this!
We were quick to hop in our vehicles to get back to the resort to quickly charge our batteries and download our memory cards and grab some lunch before heading back to the marina to be ready for our twilight and night (Manta) dives!
As we headed out of the marina we were treated to a hump back whale show…there were about four of them that were at the surface! Awesome!
Our twilight dive was at a location called Freeze Face…named because of a fresh water outlet that is substantially colder than the salt water…luckily we didn’t find it…so my face didn’t freeze J. This was a good dive but our new dive master Mike was a bit of a speed demon…his interpretation of a nice slow dive was quite bit different than ours!
Next it was time for the long anticipated MANTA DIVE! The weather was a bit questionable and it was raining a bit. We saw a few boats heading back from the north dive sites so our crew decided to stay where we were and try to attract the mantas to us rather than risk a rough site where we’d have to abort…so we tied up to our sister boat who was also out for a manta dive and waited for dark. Sadly…no mantas came…so we did a nice night dive and saw some cool critters but were disappointed that we didn’t get mantas. The shop offered us 50% off a ‘do over’ trip so we are signed up for another try on Friday J.
After we had our feet back on shore it was time for some dinner…then off to bed! We were pooped!
RSS Feed
