Two Dives with Leo and Luis on the Little Coral Knoll

I got to the beach a little before 6:00 am and was surprised to find many of the parking spots taken already.  I was the 6th car from the entry.  A lot of cars left by the time Leo came at 7:30 am, however, and both he and Luis parked near me. Leo made the snorkel swim and the tired diver's tow.  He also briefed us on this dive on the Little Coral Knoll. We got in the water and followed Leo, but he got set to the Northeast by the current.  We came to some rocks I recognized. I went to the sand sea and headed West to find the counter-weight, then we headed to the knoll.  Even so, we were set a bit East and spotted the concrete block before we found the knoll.  From the block, we went SSW to the knoll.


Found a Green Turtle on the knoll and got a couple of nice photos. We were able to swim with the turtle for several minutes.    

 

Caught these two crabs in the doubler position, in which male crab carries the female crab.  Mating usually lasts for 5 1/2 hours, but the crabs will maintain this position for up to 3 days after mating. The female crab stores the male’s sperm on the underside of her abdomen and will use that sperm for two or more spawnings within her three year lifespan.

I also got a nice shot of this Red Grouper and then soon after I got this shot of the same grouper flexing its mouth.  

Nice dive, if not the longest.  Dive time was 114 minutes.  My RMV was 0.38 ft3/minute.  











Leo headed home and Luis and I made a second dive.  This time, we started from the smaller rock and went by the knee high coral to the counter-weight and then to the knoll.  Spotted the Dog Rock as we went by, but I did not get off course to check it out.

I found this very young Smooth Trunkfish and got some good pictures.

Also had a Nurse Shark swim up to me on the knoll. Surprised me, but I got this shot before it was gone.




Luis and I took a side trip to the Porthole-rocks, but the Grouper wasn't there and there were no sharks there either.

I did get this shot of a Hogfish on the way back from the Porthole-Rokcs.

I then found this Purplemouth Moray Eel on the way back to the knoll.  From the knoll, we went back to the smaller rock, and then we back tracked to the beach.




Dive Time was 132 minutes, but I still had 700 psi left in the tank.  Could have been 25-30 minutes longer.  RMV was 0.36 ft3/minute.