This morning our boat dive was a repeat from our last trip. The dive site was Valley of the Kings. We saw a trumpet fish. We also saw a few schools of fish. Seems that schooling happens more at shallower depths. We also saw a spider crab, a lobster and a tiny pipe fish.
Our drop dive was Newman’s Wall this morning. When we neared the end of the wall, Andy found a yellow jawfish poke its head out of the sand. One of our dive masters this week gave us a tip after he pointed one out to us. Andy didn’t get a photo of it that time. But the dive master said if you see one, he’ll go back in his hole. Then you can wait a bit. They are curious fish, so they will poke their head out to look at you. When Andy saw the fish at Newman’s Wall, he was able to get a pic with this tip.
When we got to the Prince Albert, Linda spotted a trumpet fish. We practiced taking photos the way Mickey suggested at his lesson earlier in the week. We also saw an eel under a large rock heading up the chains after the safety stop. It was likely a green moray eel. We also took some nice pictures of a large trunkfish.
Our afternoon boat dive was PG & Me. The best part of this dive was the two swim through spots we went through. One was a crack in the reef that we descended through. The other was another hole in the rock we swam through on our way back to the boat. We saw a flounder hiding on top of a barrel sponge. Andy scared it unintentionally so we saw it swim a bit too. There was a deep wall. We saw a sting ray coming back to the boat.
Our afternoon drop dive was at Coco View Wall. Andy saw a king crab. We also saw lobsters and shrimp. They dropped us further back on the wall. So we didn’t have as much air when we got to the wreck.
Tonight we attempted another night dive. The tide is very high. There’s a full moon tonight. The current near the resort is also very hard to swim through. We put our fins on close to the resort where Linda could still stand. Andy led us to the platform. The whole time we struggled to progress. We were able to follow the reflective buoys on the chain. As we struggled with the current, eventually the chain stopped. At that point we couldn’t figure out where the next buoy was. Andy remembered the chain going all the way through the grass until there was sand substrate. Visibility was very poor. We made the decision to abort the dive before we got to the safety stop. Getting back to the resort was a challenge.
We made it to shore, but we misjudged our direction. We both thought we would be near the hammocks on the dock the way the waves were pushing us. However we wound up further down the beach near the cabanas. It was a challenge getting back to the entrance to take our fins off. We didn’t want to walk on the sea grass.