Another Solo Dive on the Ledge of Turtles

Dennis had planned to go and apparently did show up at the apartment, but well after 7:45.  He called me about 8:00 am, but I was already coming up on Sunrise.  Just as well.  Surf was rough, there was a lot of surge at depth and visibility was poor compared to yesterday.  Still it was a good dive.  I went down before the swim buoys, looking for an octopus, but I didn't see any.




I did photograph some weird looking creature, looks kind of like a big brother to the mantis shrimp looking critter I saw on the Big Coral Knoll.



When I got to the reef, I had to hunt for the Rock Pile, but I did find it.  Headed off at 120 degrees and spotted Turtle Rock at the limit of my visibility, which was no more than 10 ft.  If I had been a foot or two North, I would have missed it.  From there, of course, it was easy to find the Ledge and  I hung out there for the whole time.  

Got several pictures of Squirrelfish,

some Juvenile Porkfish

and a Brown Chromis, which I had not seen before.

 I increased the shutter speed in an effort to stop the blur on the light blue to white dots on the Juvenile Yellowtail Damselfish, but, as you can see, I need to increase the speed some more.

A Spotted Moray Eel came along and was hunting on the two coral heads on the East end of the Ledge.  I like this shot with the Squirrelfish looking at the eel with its mouth open.

I got some additional shots of the eel as he left the Ledge and headed North to the Staghorn Coral.





My time on the dive was 2 hours and 7 minutes, but should have been more.  Tim gave be a really good fill yesterday.