My Deep, Blue View: 4 Dives One Day

(Map Of Today: Red=Resort, Yellow=Dives

Today was another great day, we went back to the dampier straight, but today we did new reefs for me. We started at a reef called five rocks, named this because it surrounds five massive rocks sticking out of the water. It was very cool divine started out on the slope of the reef, and I was immediately drawn to the amazingly colourful corals. I snapped away at this one incredibly vibrant bommie, with quite a few cardinal fish surrounding it. The reef was beautiful, and the visibility was good, even though there was low light today, still a bit cloudy.

(Stunning Colours With Cardinal Fish)

While shooting the coral, I heard Nikson banging his pointer on his tank, and looked around to see a school of chevron barracuda. They were easier to shoot than most groups of barracuda, and I was able to get a good bit closer than I could t most. The shot I got still is not perfect, but it is more useable. For fish with such sharp teeth, they seem to be very timid around divers, but they are amazing to see while in big groups, the reef all of a sudden goes empty. After shooting the barracuda, I followed Leon along the reef.

(Barracuda Colour)

(Barracuda Black and White)

We ended up in the shallows around the rocks, it was very cool, there are little passages in the gaps between them, a bit lime tunnels. The soft coral growth on the walls of the rocks are amazing, they are incredibly colourful. Leon posed for a few shots near the coral for me, which brought some life, and perspective into them. We had fun swimming through the tunnels and shooting away at soft coral. As I was resting down my hand to take a shot of a school of small fish, I came across another scorpion fish. It was perched on a coral arm, looked a bit like a stick. I got a few shots of him before he got angry with me and moved, but I followed. According to Claudia who was there after us, it was back to it's spot.

(Stone Fish

(Leon Near 5 Rocks)

Our second and third dives were both at Cape Kri, a very steep slope just off the shore of Kri island, where there is another dive resort. It was a cool dive, with a very strong current, but as usual, that brings the fish. It was amazingly fishy, they were everywhere. The first big school I managed to integrate myself into was one of big jack, and I got a good shot on the first dive, there were tons of them.

(Big School Of Jacks)

After the first dive at Cape Kri, we all decided we should do another one there, so we had lunch, and quickly went back in. The second dive at Kri was a bit less currenty than the first, but still had slot of fish. While coming up to the shallower area of Kri, I got a startle, when a moray eel came out of nowhere and was free swimming next to me. I followed it for quite a while, ending up back down at 60 feet, but I wanted a good shot of one. After shooting my moray, I headed back to the shallows to join Leon.

(Moray Eel)

We floated along for the rest of the dive, letting the current do all the work. There were tons of fish, they were everywhere. Puffers, snappers, grouper, and jacks were just the start of it. Again on this dive, the water was an incredible unbelievable dark blue, it was super blue. After floating above the reef for a while I stumbled upon a map puffer fish, so I snapped so,e pictures of it. It's a weird looking fish, it digests food very slowly, so it always looks bloated, bit the pattern on it's side is very cool.

(Map Puffer Fish)

Right as Leon and I were about to surface, we came across another massive school of jack, bigger than the one on the first dive. We both got to work, him filming, and I shooting, I got a great shot of Leon filming the jacks. They are so abundant here it is unbelievable. The day of diving was definitely a success. The water was calm, the sun intermittent, but the laughs were plentiful and the spectacular performance of nature was as always on going.

(Leon And A School Of Jack Colour)

(Leon and A School Of Jack Black and White)

We did a night dive today as well, on the house reef before dinner. We hopped in on the House Reef directly under the Jetty. It was cool, I was shooting wide angle at night, which is uncommon from what I hear. It was a good dive, the reef was alive in a very different way than usual, lots of little creepy crawly things, but with Nikson leading, you still get to see some very cool things. The first thing i saw on hopping into the water was a blue star fish on the reef, it was really a test photo, but i came out well, a very hard shot to take however, starfish move unbelievably quickly, so I was struggling the whole time. I then shot some lightning fast crinoids.

Enough Jokes now, I definitely saw some cool stuff tonight, but most things that are out are quite jumpy when it comes to light. I found a group of little pipe fish under a bommie, they are extremely tiny, but very calm when it comes to people getting close to them, which makes shooting them easy and fun. After the pipe fish, Nikson called me over and showed me a massive hermit crab, its amazing how different they look when big. It was very timid and defensive, snapping it's claws in the air and hiding under a rock. It was cool watching him grip into the rock, it was so secure against the rock.

(Pipe Fish)

(Hermit Crab 1)

(Hermit Crab 2)

Nikson showed me some cool little creepy crawly things, though hard to shoot with a wide angle I tried any way. They were all very strange and scrawny, but interesting to look at. The first was a small spider shrimp, very brittle looking, it was sat atop a piece of soft coral very oblivious to what was going on around them. Next he showed me a small sea anemone with very small srimp on them, they were impossible to get big in the photo, but It is below any way.

(Funny Little Shrimp)

(Little Spidery Thing)

The next two finds of Nikson's were far more interesting, the first was another crocodile fish, which is a very interesting, and well disguised fish. I got one shot off of it before he shot off like a guided missile. Next Nikson banged on his tank, which I paid extra close attention to, because I am looking for a walking shark, but this happened to be a wobbegong under a bommie sleeping the night away. He was more lethargic than usual, which I thought to be impossible. I suppose they are Bahamians.

(Crocodile Fish)

(Wobbegong Shark)

Today was another good one. I am anticipating tomorrows dives, they have been so high action recently, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for my next dives. Check out the rest of the photos below, but look on Flickr and facebook for better quality photos.