Today our morning boat dive was The Wreck of Mr Bud. We saw two sea horses. One was black striped, the other looked like a regular sea horse. We saw a moray eel swimming around in open water a couple feet up from the reef. Another interesting thing was a tiny crab. We also saw a pipe fish near the mooring line at the end of the dive. Andy liked Mr Bud because it was the first time he and Linda got to swim through a wreck.
Our drop dive was at Newman’s Wall. Linda spotted a lion fish on the coral wall. We also saw some squid near the trail coming in from the safety stop. There were several of them. We also saw a lobster.
Over our lunch break, we took a class on under water photography taught by Mickey. Mickey runs the camera shop at the resort. We rented an Olympus 5A from him. He has it set so we can take decent shots under water at depth without a flash. He talked about two different approaches to photography. One was a photographer who would spend a week taking a single photo. He said you create a photo. The other photographer said “F8 and be there”. His thought was that you want to capture a single moment that happens in an immediate instant.
Mickey said that you want to capture this instant you see a fish so that you get it’s head and eyes facing you in the photo. Too late and often we get photos of fish tails as they swim away. He talked about taking a quick first photo and setting the camera for better settings if you still have time to get a better shot. He said that you’re best under water with the sun at your back, just like on land. He also said that it’s best to be looking up at a fish rather than down.
The boat dive this afternoon was Forty Foot Point. We saw a mantis shrimp at the mooring line here on our last trip. Today he didn’t make an appearance. We saw lobster and a crab on a coral shelf.
Our drop dive was on Coco View Wall. Andy spotted a large lion fish, a puffer fish with spikes, and a shrimp in a barrel sponge. We also saw hermit crabs.
After dinner we had a video call with Annabelle. Then we got ready for a night dive. Our plan was that Andy would lead the dive. We wanted to dive Newman’s Wall, then come back to the Prince Albert. After that we wanted to see the sunken airplane off of the Prince Albert.
On our way out, we saw a bunch of lobster on our way to the safety stop. Andy saw one just past him, then two coming right at him. He went over one in about four feet of water. After the safety stop, Andy spotted a couple squid as we approached the wreck. Linda was struggling to take a photo of them. Eventually we moved on. Andy had used a lot of air at this point. We would have stayed at the wreck and airplane rather than going to Newman’s Wall.
We had come up the bow of the ship after seeing the squid. One mistake here was following the line down to the airplane. What we should have done, if Andy hadn’t used so much air, was go back to the middle of the ship where the compass heading leads you from Newman’s Wall. This would be a known reference point.
At any rate we continued forward thinking we were headed to Newman’s Wall. Andy was worried his air supply was too low, so he turned back. Linda was a bit confused about what was happening. We continued the dive when Linda noticed our dive computer beeped at us.
We are diving nitrox, so you can’t go past a certain depth for safety purposes. The computer beeped because we had reached this depth. At that point Linda got Andy’s attention and we started to surface. On our way up we saw a sea turtle swimming with a few fish hitchhiking on its back.
While we were navigating this disaster, it wasn’t completely clear what each other was doing. We held on to one another as we had difficulty maintaining our buoyancy. At times we would ascend too fast. We intended to do a safety stop. We actually wound up doing two of them because we unintentionally surfaced once, then went down too deep, and had to do another safety stop.
Once we were on the surface, Linda suggested we remain calm. Andy apologized for getting us lost and leading too deep. Linda later admitted we were both at fault because she should have intervened sooner. Andy turned off his flashlight realizing we may be out there for a while. We didn’t need two lights swimming back on the surface holding each other.
We had swum for a bit and poked out heads up to see where we were. Somehow we were turned around, swimming in the wrong direction away from the safety stop and resort. From that point forward, Andy poked his head up periodically and corrected our course. He aimed us for the two story beach accommodation at Coco View. Andy was concerned that the current may prevent us from making progress home. He picked his head up a couple more times. Relieved, he saw the beach residence getting much larger as we were getting closer.
We saw the strobe light flashing at the safety stop. We went down to grab our tags from the safety stop. Then we came back in through the channel like normal. On our way in, we saw a coral reef eel snake.
We were glad we made it out safely. We were also glad we had each other to get through this disaster. After we got our gear put away and back to our Cabana, Linda stated that the diving computers Andy bought before the trip saved our lives.