Article Author:

Suzette
Advanced Open Water

Wow, it’s been a crazy busy few weeks at Rainbow Reef! We’re certainly not complaining, but it’s been a whirlwind of divers and photos and fish stories- *whew*. Time for a day off today after I finish recording some thoughts here.

Week before last we were excited to welcome back our good friends Jerry, Nancy and Elva. The most memorable dive I did with that crew (along with Bridget, the lovely wife of Captain Bill) was an incredible drift on Conch Wall. If you haven’t done Conch Wall, you really must. It’s a long, sloping wall that tapers gradually into a flat relief as you approach the area of the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory (which you cannot swim into- we surface prior to getting there). We saw a huge nurse shark at the beginning of the dive and with so many places to look it seemed like everyone had their own unique amazing experience. Upon surfacing tales were exchanged of seeing sharks, rays, turtles and many other fantastic sights. I personally was stunned at the sheer size of some of the day to day fish that you see on a more shallow dive- the French Angels were dinner plate size or bigger and I saw a puffer fish that astounded me with his girth.

On that same dive we went to a location nearby that was a neat patch reef- wow, the life we saw there! The most remarkable part were the Flamingos Tongue that were absolutely everywhere! I’d only ever seen one before and suddenly they were all over the place. It was like an Easter egg hunt just popping from sea fan to sea fan looking for more. What a delight! Toward the end of the dive I was thrilled to get to swim side by side with a nice sized nurse shark until I finally had to turn around and re-join the group and get on the boat. I could have stayed there all day. It was amazing.

I’ll close for now and save some stories for next week’s log- I have more, believe me. I’m putting up a few pictures to enjoy and until next time, get out there and do some diving!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 9:29 am and is filed under Diving Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.