The wind got up yesterday afternoon and it was still windy this morning. Down to breakfast at 6.30 where we chatted with Timothy and Michelle from Tennessee, they arrived last night and their journey had taken three days, including stopovers at New York and Korea. We had met them previously when we were last here in May earlier this year.
After breakfast it was camera time. We must be getting into the swing of it was all done in a blink of any eye.
Same divers and crew on the boat again this morning. No Wendel as his wife had a baby the first night we were here, so we have Saldy Jr as captain instead.
First dive was on Kirby’s Rock which is on the other island sheltered from the wind. Beautiful dive including a wall, coral covered slopes and large pinnacles.
On this dive we saw many nembrotha slugs, bright yellow sea cucumbers, shrimps on wire coral and two frogfish, one large black one and the other a small yellow painted frogfish which decided to swim directly towards me as I hurriedly tried to backup to get out of its way.
Stayed in the boat between dives, and talked about Darral and Dianne’s camera and lighting equipment. This is their first trip out with new Olympus TG6s, housing, a backscatter snoot for Darral and new video torches for Dianne. All going well but Dianne’s lights are not working as they would like. Out was decided that Dianne would have a go with the backscatter snoot and Darral would assist her.
Second dive of the day was Aguhuta. We went in search of nudis and the site did not disappoint. Load of them everywhere. My favourite was not the nudis but a couple of very bold featherduster and fan worms. They are just so delicate and so beautiful.
Where we dived this morning was sheltered. As we crossed the sea back to Buceo, we wind became apparent. One wave completely soaked our Captain. He literally was soaked through to his skin. The winds was onshore at the dive resort but getting off the boat was completely fine as long as there was a hand to hold to.
We had a spot of lunch, in fact, we both had BLT and shared a large bowl of coleslaw. The coleslaw here is make using extremely finely sliced cabbage, a little vinegar, sugar and caraway seeds. Delicious!
Lunch was followed by a spot of picture work and blogging.
Next dive was at three. Manit School, around the corner from Buceo, so sheltered. This is a coral slope going down to sand with lots of critters. Many different nudis of types and colours and gobies on wire coral.
The winds is picking up again. Whilst we were doing our surface interval in the pool the rain came in. The islands opposite us disappeared as did most of the sea. It absolutely hammered down!! The wind really came up. Large waves on the shore.
Some people had their night dives cancelled but Nanni was happy to go, so us and Martin were up for it.
As getting the boat to the show was a little difficult, Michelle and Timothy came on our boat, out to the dive site, Secret Bay, where is was flat calm, then they “walked the plank” to their boat.
No waves. No current. Not many divers. We saw bob tail squid, skeleton shrimps, tiny octopus and an even tinier yellow (hairy) frogfish which decided it wanted to climb on the camera and when I moved it, it decide my hand was a good bet!
A very excellent dive! By the time we good back to Buceo the waves had calmed a bit and there were not issues on the shore.
It was tea of lumpia, spicy salt and pepper squid, mango and cucumber salad with fried rice.
Then picture work and lights out by 9.50pm.