Wednesday Afternoon Looking for Turtles

Luis called to say he could dive this afternoon and we arranged to meet near Tower 17, again. We geared up, swam to the swim buoys and descended. I forgot my weights on this dive and had some trouble staying down at the end of the dive, but otherwise did just fine.

Worse than forgetting the weights, I did something to the camera and the strobe connection when I put it in the housing because the strobe would not fire. I took some pictures, anyway, and they came out okay, but only because of the intermitant sunlight.

We also ran across a Shortfin Pipefish just lying on top of the sand. I got several shots, but really needed a macro lens. There is not much to look at with the 80 mm lens.

When we got to the end of the reef, we found a lionfish and Luis speared it with his Lionfish Tamer, though it took four tries. I cut its head off with my knife to kill it. Tough little buggers.

We also spotted a purplemouth moray eel swimming in the open and I got a picture despite the lack of a strobe.

Not a bad dive, but no turtles.

We had a short surface interval and got back in for a second dive. The sun was going down and I did not want to be coming in after dark. It worked out just fine.

We found the group of large rocks from this morning, but saw no sign of the Hawksbill despite having brought sardines and vienna sausages for her. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

We did see a Hermit Crab coming out of his shell and also a school of Atlantic Spadefish that were just marvellous in the light. I got video, but, of course, I cannot upload it to Blogger. It is available on Picasaweb.