Grand Cayman 6/4 - 6/6/15
Sun, Jun 7 2015 05:29
| Permalink
Grand Cayman 6/4 – 6/6
Our journey started early in the morning when our taxi
picked us up at 3:15 a.m. to head to the airport. We arrived at the airport and got through
security without even so much as a swab of my camera bag, which is a rarity
when we travel.
We headed for the United Lounge to fill our water bottles,
use the restroom, and see what kind of goodies they had for breakfast. By the time we got to the gate they had
actually started boarding the plane early so we just walked right up an got on
(we were in first class, which was the group they were boarding).
We had a very nice flight from Phoenix to Houston. They actually served breakfast and I have to
say it was pretty good. They had steel
cut oats with brown sugar crumb topping, dried cranberries, a biscuit with
butter and strawberry jam, a fresh fruit plate, and a vanilla Greek
yogurt.
When we got to Houston we had about a three hour
layover. We took the opportunity to have
some lunch as you never know what you are going to get on the plane (in the
case of coach it is nothing any more).
We decided on Ruby’s dinner as Eric was starving and wanted some real
food. After our “lunch” at 9 a.m. (we
had been up since 2:30 a.m.), we made our way to the United Lounge to relax for
the rest of our layover. Our layover
time went by in a hurry and we headed to our gate to board the flight to Grand
Cayman. After our past trips to Asia and
Europe the Caribbean trips seem incredibly short now.
We had another good flight and landed on time in Grand
Cayman. We got off the plane and were
one of the first few people through immigration. By the time we got to the baggage claim area
they already had three-fourths of the bags unloaded from the plane and off the
belt ready for people to pick up. They
are really on the ball compared to Bonaire where it takes half the length of the
flight just to get your bag--mainly due to the fact that they leave the entire
job of unloading the bags from the plane and putting them on the baggage claim
belt to a single 80-year-old man.
After picking up our bags, we made our way out the front
door of the airport and headed down to the walkway toward the rental car
agency. When we landed we noticed it was
very wet everywhere around the airport and it looked very stormy off in the
distance, but for the moment it was dry.
We got our car rented and loaded all our bags in and headed toward the
condo we had rented for the week at the Turtle Nest Inn.
We decided to stop at the grocery store on our way to the
condo and pick up some things so we would not have to do it later. We ran into the store and got all the items
on our shopping list but by the time we were ready to check out it was pouring
down rain and I mean pouring. By the
time we got our groceries out to the car and got in we were pretty much soaked
to the bone. We made it the rest of the
way to the condo in the downpour and then had to run from the parking lot over
to the Inn to check in and then back to the condo. By the time we got to the condo I don’t think
there was a dry spot on either one of us.
After we got toweled off a little bit, the rain let up so I
took Dick, Katie and Zane back to the grocery store as they had not had a chance
to stop when they arrived a couple hours earlier. We got lucky and made it in and out of the
store without getting wet. After we got
back to the condo we had to decide what to do for dinner. Everyone was pretty beat as we had all been
up since early in the morning or in the case of Dick, Lou, Katie, and Zane
since the day before. So we decided to
stay in and Eric and I made tostadas and Dick, Katie, and Zane had some of the hot
items they had purchased from the deli at the grocery store. After dinner everyone was pretty beat so we
all headed off to bed.
The next morning the sun was out for a short bit. As we were all on vacation, we decided to
sleep in and take our time getting up.
After having some breakfast everyone got their gear rounded up and put
together so we could head out to do our first dive. We decided on Eden Rock for the first dive,
which would also be Zane’s first official ocean dive. This is the spot where I also did my first
ocean dive. It took us a while to get
everything together and get in the water, but we finally did it.
Zane had an exciting first dive. We saw two turtles, a sting ray, barracuda,
and tarpon (which are everywhere here).
After our dive we packed up the car and headed to Turtle Reef on the
other end of the island to do the second dive.
We had lunch at Sunset Diver’s restaurant/bar as we watched the divers
come and go. Everyone enjoyed lunch very
much. Most of the day had been overcast
and just after we finished lunch it started raining. It did not really matter much to us as we
were going to be getting wet anyway, but it does cool things off.
We had a nice dive on the mini wall, but there was some
pretty good current. This was Zane’s
first experience with current and I don’t think he liked it too much. Zane, Eric, and Katie saw a baby ray along
with all the other usual suspects you see on most dives.
After getting out of the water it started pouring down rain
again. We rinsed all our gear and loaded
it in the car for the journey back to the condo. We made the mistake of trying to make our way
from one end of the island to the other through the middle of town during rush
hour on a weekday—Not a good idea. It
took us over an hour to get back to the condo and we had pouring rain the whole
way on top of it.
After we finally made it back and got all our stuff in the
condo, we were all starving to death. We
were trying to decide what to do for dinner and finally decided to just order
pizza. It was pouring down rain and we
did not want to all load into the car and drive all the way back to town to
have dinner. There is a Dominos pizza
just down to the road that we have gotten pizza at before on past vacations
here. So we tried calling but all we
could get was a busy signal. Eric and I
decided to just drive down there and place the order in person. The drive down the road was like driving
through a hurricane. I have not seen
rain like that in a long time, if ever.
The road was partially flooded, there were tree parts all over in the
road and by the time we got to Dominos the parking lot was packed and it was
standing room only inside. I stayed in
the car while Eric went in to place the order.
He came back out to the car for the ½ hour wait to get the pizzas. He went back in after ½ hour but had to wait
an additional ½ hour just to get up to the counter to pick up his order. Meanwhile I waited out in the car wondering
when someone was going to hit the rental car I was driving with all the
maneuvering around in the tiny packed parking lot in the pouring rain. Eric finally picked up the order and we
managed to make it back to the condo in one piece. After dinner we were all pretty pooped after
our full day. Lou stayed at the condo
and relaxed, walked on the beach, and did some reading while we were out all
day.
The next day we were up a little bit earlier than the
previous day. I got up and made Rosa
Parks peanut butter pancakes for everyone after which we got all our dive gear
rounded up and headed out for some diving.
Before we did our first dive we stopped at Diver’s World so Dick could
get a rash guard and some swim trunks, along with some other dive accessories.
After our shopping trip we stopped at Rackham’s bar and
grill downtown to have some lunch. This
is where they feed the tarpon every night at 7:30, so they tend to hang our
around there all the time. They also
have quite a few iguanas that like to sun themselves on the rocks there (and
eat scraps that customers throw them).
The weather was still overcast this morning but it made for beautiful
weather to sit along the waterfront and have lunch.
After lunch the consensus was to go back to Eden Rock for
the next dive as Zane really liked that spot yesterday. As it ended up, Eric, Zane, Katie, and I did
this dive. Dick was having some issues
with his BC and decided to sit this one out.
I managed to find a tiny octopus on this dive along with a huge
parrotfish—just to name a few of the really cool things we saw.
After this dive we packed the car up and headed back to the
condo. The dive shop let Eric and Dick
rent a tank to bring back so that Dick could get his BC set up and test
everything out in the pool. Luckily it was
a weekend so we did not have to deal with rush hour traffic on the way back to
the condo this time.
After we got back to the condo Eric and Dick set about the
task of getting Dick’s BC set up with the new webbing he had purchased earlier in
the morning. They got everything working
well and then Eric also reworked Zane’s BC with similar type webbing. After everyone was thoroughly waterlogged,
they came in and we had some of the left-over Dominos pizza. We made sure we purchased enough the night
before so we could have leftovers for another meal.
Everyone enjoyed watching some of the video clips I had
taken earlier in the day and then we all watched part of the Young Frankenstein
movie before we headed off to bed.
Palau 11/26
Wed, Nov 26 2014 05:15
| Permalink
OMG--Today
was quite the interesting day to say the least.
We got up at our usual time and had our breakfast and then headed across
the street to the Drop Off. Today Teri,
Jeff, Eric and I got paired up with a new group of Chinese. It is important to understand that a lot of
Chinese divers buy their scuba certification and often times don’t even know
how to swim much less know the first thing about diving.
First, we
got a late start because we were waiting for them to get to the dive shop. They are also notorious for being late. Then, once they got in the dive shop it was
like an angry swarm of bees. They start
running all around handling and looking at everything. It is kind of like herding cats trying to get
them to focus on the task at hand. After
they finally got all their paperwork and permits filled out, we were finally on
our way, about 30 minutes late.
After they
got them all down to the boat, they were told to unload their gear onto the
boat and get it set up. They did not
seem like they had too much trouble setting their gear up, only a few issues
such as putting the regulator on the tank backwards, etc., but that was just
the beginning of what was to come. So
once they got their gear set up and we got enough weight for everyone, we set
off to pick up Teri and Jeff at PPR.
After
picking up Jeff and Teri we made way for the first dive site. Luckily Edwin would be the guide for just
Eric, Jeff, and Teri (I did not dive again today because I have a head cold—so
just rode along). The rest of the group
of Chinese was being guided by Aki, the Japanese guide who works at the
shop. We dropped Eric, Jeff, and Teri
off at Blue Corner for the first dive and then headed to Dexter’s wall as the
first dive for the rest of the group as there is less current there and it is
an easier dive.
This is
where it started to get interesting. It
should only take a few minutes to get your gear on and get in the water, but
for this group it took nearly 30 minutes or more. It was quite the circus show watching them
attempting to get their gear on properly and get ready to backroll into the
water. Half had to be reminded to put
their weight belts on, one girl who was probably 100 pounds in body weight had
on 20 pounds of weight, some of them tried to backroll in without masks or
regulators. Then, Logan saw one of them
trying to work his pressure gauge to let the air out to drop down.
Logan, our
boat driver, then took the boat over to shallower water to let the four
non-divers snorkel around. It quickly
became obvious that these people had never snorkeled either. They had all new equipment and had no idea
how to even put the snorkel on their mask.
One girl asked me to help her put her snorkel and her mask strap on her
head. Then they proceeded to get their
life jackets on and get in the water. In
addition, they had no fins and would not let go of the rope on the boat. As soon as they got in the water all we heard
was “no fish, no fish.”
Shortly after they got in to
snorkel, Logan noticed one of the Chinese divers that we had just dropped off
popped to the surface coughing and hacking—obviously he took in water
somehow. Lord only knows what depth he
was at before he shot to the surface. So
Logan told the snorkelers to get back on the boat so we could go collect this
diver. One of the four snorkelers in the
group who spoke very good English (most, if not all, spoke very little English)
informed us that this was that diver’s first dive. So we gathered up the distressed diver and
loaded him onto the boat—following which he proceeded to vomit over the edge of
the boat—one of many episodes to come.
Needless to say he did not do any more dives today and looked like death
for most of the rest of the day.
By the time all of this commotion
was over it was time to pick up Edwin’s group.
So we made our way back to their dive site to pick them up. After getting them on the boat, then we
headed back to pick up the remaining Chinese divers and their guide. Needless to say they were not down long—the
Chinese also tend to go through air fast.
After getting them all back on the
boat (after some instruction on what to take off first), we slowly made our way
to the second dive site, New Drop off for Edwin’s group, and Coral Paradise for
the Chinese group. During the surface
interval Logan offered to let the ladder down so that the snorkelers could
snorkel, but it took them a little while to get motivated enough to get into
the water and hang off the boat (not what I would consider snorkeling). Then it was time to dive again, so they got
back on the boat and we made our way to the dive site for Edwin’s group.
Of course it only took a couple
minutes, if even that long, for Eric, Jeff, and Teri to get in with Edwin. Then we made our way back to the shallower
area at Coral Paradise to drop off the Chinese divers. This time it did not take them quite as long
to get in, except for a couple of them that seemed to take forever. Finally they were all in the water and
dropped down. Prior to them getting in on this dive, Aki,
their guide, gave them the briefing for the dive site and reminded them again
to stay at the same depth as him and to stay together. So I can only imagine what it was like
underwater on the first dive—probably similar to the circus show above water.
We sat and waited for Edwin’s group
to surface after their dive and the Chinese group was not far behind, even
though they gone in much later.
Amazingly everyone from the Chinese group surfaced alive. After everyone was back on the boat we headed
to a beach for a nice relaxing lunch. Then
we headed back to PPR to drop off Jeff and Teri and then Neco to drop everyone
else off. Today was our last diving day
and we had beautiful sunny weather all day.
After we got back to the dive shop we
talked with Fabio. Today was his dry day
as he had plans to fly to Tokyo to visit his girlfriend early morning
tomorrow. He was nice enough to invite
us to his apartment for dinner. He made
us an amazing dinner of bruschetta, vegetarian pasta, and salad. He is Italian, so he definitely knows how to
make a good Italian meal. After enjoying
a good meal and some good conversation together, he dropped us back off at our
apartment.
Tomorrow is our dry day (also
Thanksgiving Day) before we fly back home on the 28th. We leave at 5 a.m. Palau time on the 28th.
Comments (1)
Palau 11/24-25
Tue, Nov 25 2014 01:32
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Today was
another typical day in paradise. We got
up at the usual time and wandered over to the Drop Off where we found
Fabio. We split the groups up today so
we just had the two Koreans, the couple from Hawaii, Eric and me, and a new
lady, Bentley. So we had plenty of space
on the boat to spread out.
Our first
dive site was Blue Corner. We did not
have the current we had the other day, but it was good enough to bring in some
sharks and several Napoleon wrasse.
After we hooked in on the corner and watched the sharks for a while,
we then drift along the wall and ran
into a shark that had been mating. Shark
mating is a very violent act and the females are very ripped up and sometimes
have chunks of flesh missing. Further on
down the wall we came across some large schools of fish spawning and some other
schools of fish swarming in to eat the eggs.
Then as we ended the dive out in the blue we saw a large school of
barracuda.
After that
dive we slowly made our way to the second dive site, Virgin Blue Hole. After our surface interval, we jumped in and
floated on the surface over to the hole.
It is only possible to do this dive when it is high tide, as the entry
hole is on the top of the reef in very shallow water. Once over the hole, we dropped down into the
shaft to the bottom at around 100 feet.
Then we swam toward the light at the exit hole and swam out onto the
wall. This site offers some very pretty
coral and some neat swim-throughs, which you don’t see many of in Palau.
We then
headed to the beach for lunch and after a relaxing lunch we headed back to
Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) to drop off Jeff and Teri. We had kind of a cold, wet ride to PPR, the
rest of the way to the next dive site, and eventually back to the dive
shop. On the way to the dive shop we
stopped at a dive site called the Helmet.
It is a shipwreck from World War II.
No one was sure what the actual name of the ship was so they call it the
Helmet wreck because it contains Japanese helmets. We dropped the Korean couple and Bentley off
here in a driving rain and then headed back to the dive shop.
In the rain
we hurried across the street to our apartment.
I was hoping and praying we had hot water today. It has been kind of hit or miss as to whether
we get any hot water. At first I thought
I had it figured out—I thought that because the water heater was far away from
the bathroom it just took a while to get to the shower, but apparently I was
wrong. I think the water heater is
shared by several units and whomever gets the hot water first hits the
jackpot. For a couple days in a row we
did without hot water. Today we got
lucky and had plenty of hot water.
After we
got cleaned up we crossed back over to the Drop Off and met with Fabio for a
while and then came back to the apartment to rest for a while. We had plans to meet Fabio and Tua at the
Drop Off around 7 p.m. to go out to dinner at The Taj. Tua will be leaving tomorrow afternoon and
she had never been to Taj, so we had a nice dinner sharing a bunch of vegetarian
dishes.
After
dinner Fabio dropped us off in front of our apartment and we said goodbye to
Tua just in case we did not see her tomorrow.
Then we were off to bed.
Today I
woke up and unfortunately I had come down with Fabio’s cold. He has been sick for about the past week and
I thought I was going to manage not to catch it, but I wasn’t so lucky. So I decided today I would go out on the
boat, but not dive. We only have today
and tomorrow left of diving and then our dry day before we fly. Unfortunately, today was cloudy and rainy all
day. The water was a bit on the choppy
side too, but I could not complain that it was hot on the boat.
The first
dive site we went to was Sandy Paradise.
Today we had a small group on the boat.
It was just Fabio guiding Eric, Jeff, Teri, and Bentley. They saw all the usual suspects on the dive,
nothing out of the ordinary.
The second
dive we went to Saies Corner. On the way
to this dive site we came across a huge pod of dolphins, so we circled around
in the boat and played with them, watching them jump and spin. After the surface interval, Eric, Jeff, and
Teri along with Fabio dove in. Bentley
was not doing the second dive as she was flying out the next day. So our boat driver, Logan, took the boat over
to the edge of the wall so that Bentley could snorkel. She spent a good 45 minutes or so
snorkeling. When the rest of the boat
surfaced they said it was a rather uneventful dive with really no current to
speak of.
As it was
kind of a rough, rainy day, Logan took the boat into a quiet inlet in the Rock
Island area for us to have lunch. After
enjoying our lunch we all bundled up for the rainy ride back to PPR and Neco
Marine.
Palau 11/23
Sun, Nov 23 2014 02:17
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Today was
another casual day. We got up at our
usual time and had our breakfast and made our way across the street to wait for
the other divers to arrive. Today we
left the dock a little earlier as we had to pick up the Chinese guys at their
hotel’s dock. Today we had the four
Chinese guys, two Koreans, Tua, Eric, me, and another couple from Hawaii (Jeff
and Terri).
Our first
dive of the day was at Blue Holes. It
was a very easy dive. As we had done
this dive before we just poked around and Eric did some silhouette shots before
we made our way out and down the wall toward Blue Corner. There really was not much current today, so
it was a somewhat easy dive.
Most of the
rest of the people on the boat wanted to do three dives, so Eric and Tua and I
decided to sit out the second dive which was at Dexter’s wall and instead do
the third dive which was planned for German Channel. This meant we had a 3+ hour down-time on the
boat that included our surface interval after the first dive, the dive time for
the second dive, and the surface interval/lunch after the second dive. However, this time went by fairly quickly as
Eric and I talked with Tua.
We actually
went to the very shallow sandy area just to the other side of German Channel
for lunch. It was low tide and so the
water was only a couple feet deep. It
was not quite a beach, but almost.
Luckily we only had a little bit of a shower on the way to our lunch
spot today and that was it for rain.
We waited
until about 2:00 p.m. to get in for the dive at German Channel. We were trying to wait as late as possible so
that the current would pick up and the mantas would be feeding. When we got in there was very little current
so we headed toward the cleaning station.
There was not anything going on, so we headed out into the blue to see
if we could see anything. Not too long
after that we saw a manta heading straight for us. It glided by us headed for the cleaning station. So we all turned around and headed back to
the cleaning station.
I got some
good video of the manta slowly gliding and circling over the cleaning
station. She glided around for quite a
few passes and then off into the blue she went.
So we all swam out into the blue to see if we could find more
mantas. As we were swimming out we
spotted at least three. They were not
feeding yet as the current still had not picked up, but they were gliding back
and forth.
It turned
out to be a good dive. Everyone was
happy they got to see some mantas. After
the dive we started the journey back to the dive shop. I think we ended up getting back around 4:15
p.m. So as soon as we got back we headed
across the street to our apartment to get cleaned up and come back over to the
Drop Off before it got really busy.
Today they were having their 2nd annual Wahoo Classic fishing
tournament and activities all day long.
We got back
to the dive shop/Drop Off just before 5 p.m. and Fabrizio and Barbara were
there picking up their dive gear. So
they joined us and Tua at the Drop Off for one last drink together before they
left early tomorrow morning to head back to Italy. After their car arrived to take them back to
their hotel for the evening, Tua joined us for dinner and we watched the
Palauan dancers perform for the evening’s festivities.
Tua won’t
be joining us for diving tomorrow as it will be her no-dive day before she
flies on to her next destination, Manila.
She has approximately two more months before she completes her year off
traveling all over to many interesting dive destinations. After Manila she is heading on to
Sipidan/Malaysia. She has been to many
of the dive destinations we still have on our list to go to, so we enjoyed
talking with her about the various places she has been.
Palau 11/22
Sat, Nov 22 2014 02:47
| Permalink
We got up
at 6:20 again this morning, had our breakfast in the apartment, and I typed up
my blog before we crossed the street to the Drop Off so that Eric could publish
the blog while we waited for the rest of the divers to arrive. However, we did end up going into the dive
shop and doing some shopping before we left for the day. We had noticed that they had some really nice
lightweight waterproof bags and once we found out for sure they were waterproof,
we could not resist.
We left the
dock again around 8:30 with four new guys from Hong Kong plus Tua, Fabrizio,
Barbara, Eric, me, and of course Fabio, our dive guide. Our first dive site of the day was Sandy
Paradise, which is always a nice dive.
There is lots of pretty coral here with a sandy sloping bottom. This site also has a coral pinnacle with 3
scorpion leaf fish and another pinnacle with a cleaner wrasse that will come
out and clean your hand if you take off your glove. Fabrizio stuck out his hand this time and the
wrasse came out and checked it out and then headed straight for his head—he has
a shaved head.
We had a
nice relaxing dive for the first dive and wandered all around the reef checking
things out. There was really no current
so speak off, so it was definitely a lazy dive.
After
getting out, we slowly motored our way to the second dive site, Ulong
Wall. After waiting an appropriate
amount of time for our surface interval, we jumped in. Since the current was not right to do Ulong
Channe,l we just did the wall, which is
also very pretty. There is always
a huge school of fish here, but this time it was interesting because there were
three or four sharks that were circling and swimming through the huge
ball. We were trying to figure out what
the sharks were doing. They did not seem
to be hunting, but when they would come out of the ball of fish there would be
about six fish following along with the shark.
We were not sure if they were using the shark to rub on, chasing him,
cleaning parasites off, or exactly what they were doing. Eric managed to get some really good shots of
the huge ball of fish with the sharks swimming through.
After this
dive we tethered the boat in shallow water and had our lunch. It was low tide at that time, so it was too
shallow to get to the beach. However, this
time we did not have to rush to eat our lunch before the rain storm hit. After a relaxing lunch, we started back for
the dive shop. Our boat diver today,
Ricky, took us for a tour through the beautiful Rock Islands on the way back,
which is always a treat.
We got back
to the dock and they unloaded everyone’s gear except for the guys from Hong
Kong who were going back out to do a third dive. We made our usual stop at the Drop Off to
check emails, etc. and then headed back across the street to our
apartment. After getting cleaned up and
Eric going through today’s pictures to see what he got, we headed down the
street to the market to get some supplies since we were not sure they would be
open on Sunday.
Later,
around 6:45 p.m., we started the walk down the road to Kramer’s restaurant
where we were meeting Fabio, Fabrizio, Barbara, and Tua for dinner at 7
p.m. We had a very nice, if not very
warm, dinner on the balcony at Kramer’s.
Although we were outside on the water’s edge, there is very little
breeze in Palau and they had no fans, so it was rather hot and steamy, but the
food and service was excellent.
At about
8:30 or so we called it a night and headed back to our apartment. Fabrizio and Barbara are not diving tomorrow
as they will be leaving the next day, so they plan on returning to the dive
shop around 3 p.m. tomorrow to pick up their gear and say goodbye to
everyone.
Palau 11/21
Fri, Nov 21 2014 02:36
| Permalink
Today was
another exciting day. We got up at our
usual time to join the group at around 8 a.m.
We had the two Chinese guys and a girlfriend, the Japanese lady, a
Japanese man, and two new guys from a University in Hawaii who were here
working with the community college in Palau, plus our usual group of Fabio,
Fabricio, Barbara, Tua, Eric, and me. It
has been an interesting mix of countries this trip.
We set off
around 8:30 and headed for Blue Corner.
Because tomorrow is the new moon the currents should be picking up to
their fullest potential today and tomorrow.
We got to Blue Corner and the current looked pretty good so we dropped
in. When we got down to the reef there was
a good current so we all hooked in to watch the show.
There were quite a few sharks
riding the current and gliding by within a foot or so of our faces—very neat to
see them that close up. Unfortunately,
when I went to use my video camera all the settings were good, but when I went
to hit record the button had gotten messed up when we put the camera in the
housing and I could not hit record. So
for this dive I had to record everything in my head. It was still a really neat dive getting to
watch the sharks come in so close.
After watching the sharks for a
while we unhooked and drifted down the top of the reef. As we ascended to do our safety stop everyone
was ahead of us and I noticed them pointing back behind me, so I turned my head
to see a big turtle gliding down through the water with a batfish swimming
alongside. It had obviously just gone up
to the surface to get air and was making its way back down to the reef
again. Eric was just in front of me and
did not see it, so I grabbed my noisemaker to get his attention. He had just started shutting down his camera
and so quickly turned everything back on and got a few shots of it.
After we surfaced we slowly motored
our way to the second dive site, New Drop Off.
This site can also get some pretty good current, but usually does not
have the sharks like Blue Corner. However,
it does have much prettier coral on top of the reef. So after our surface interval was over, we
dove in and dropped down and hooked in.
There were a lot of other fish to watch here, but not many sharks. After a few minutes we unhooked and drifted
along the top of the reef.
There were a few schools of striped
snapper and some other fish hanging on top of the reef. There was also a very pretty purple anemone
with a couple fairly cooperative clownfish living in it.
After we surfaced we decided to
have our lunch on the boat again as off in the distance we could see it was
raining pretty heavily on the island where we often go to have lunch on the
beach. So we all got out our bento boxes
and began to eat. The more we ate, the
closer the rain got. Everyone hurried to
finish their lunch and got their rain gear on just in time for the rain to
hit. Unfortunately, we had to head into
the rain to get to our next destination.
It was raining so hard it was almost white-out conditions and boy was it
a cold rain.
We finally made it through the rain
and headed to another island to drop off the Japanese man and the Japanese
guide to do a third dive as the rest of us headed over to Jellyfish Lake. Eric and I waited on the boat as Mandy was
going to swing by and pick us up to go out to German Channel again to see if we
could see some more mantas.
By the time we got to German
Channel I think I counted about 12 boats.
Most of the divers were already in the water or getting out, so Mandy
got in to snorkel over and see if anything was happening. She said there was not much current, but
there were already mantas feeding, so we decided to go ahead and get in.
There was not quite as much current
today and there were quite a few more people around, but we still got to see
six mantas dancing and feeding. I got
some really good video and Eric got some really good photos this time in spite
of the huge amount of planktonic “snow” in the water. Watching the beautiful, graceful mantas was
the perfect way to end another good dive day.
As Mandy had picked us up in a much
smaller boat, it took a little longer to get all the way back to the shop and
part of the way we had to go through another rainstorm, but it was a very good
day.