Today I woke up around 7:30 and met everyone for breakfast. After breakfast we had a dive orientation and then we got ready for our first dive of the trip. We anchored just off of Run Island and Nailaka Island, which are connected to each other at low tide.
When we jumped into the water for our first dive things were going good and then somehow Uncle Vic's weights fell off and he shot up to the top after about two minutes under the water. Uncle Allen stayed with Uncle Vic as the rest of us went on our dive. The amount of sea life and coral here is amazing and it is so much healthier than anywhere else I have dived. We dove down to about 70 or 80 feet and our total dive time was about 45 to 50 minutes. There were a lot of really colorful small fish on this dive.
After our first dive we got back on the boat and had a second breakfast. While we were eating we cruised over to Ai Island where our next dive was.
This dive was called Batu Payung and we went down to about 68 feet for about 53 minutes. The coral on this dive seemed even more vibrant and colorful than the first dive and it seemed like I saw a wider variety of fish.
Some of the highlights of this dive were seeing a clown triggerfish, a giant clam, some anemonefish, and a ray, but unfortunately the ray was out in the distance and I barely saw it. Luckily Uncle Vic was able to keep his weights attached to his body this dive, so I think he enjoyed it a little more.
After we came back to the boat we had lunch and headed to our next dive spot, which was around Krakka Island between Gunungapi Island (where the volcano is) and Banda Naira Island.
This dive was very different from the previous two dives. The terrain was rockier and there was far less coral, but the rocks were covered in orange and blue sea squirts.
We saw a few different kinds of nudibranchs and I was able to spot one that was about half an inch long with green stripes and bright orange on the tips.
I think we ended up diving down to a depth of 70 feet and we stayed down for about 45 to 50 minutes.
When that dive was over we only had about an hour and a half until our night dive, which was at the Maulana Pier on Banda Naira Island. The main attraction for this dive was seeing mandarinfish. They are usually very shy and stay hidden in the rocks, but every day at dusk they come out to mate so it's much easier to see them.
As well as the mandarinfish we saw several lionfish, a couple of gurnards, a flounder and a thorny seahorse.
Toward the end of the dive the water became pretty murky since the bottom was sandy, but other than that this was probably the best night dive I've been on. When we got back on the boat we cleaned up and had dinner and then went to bed. I think this trip is basically gonna be eat, dive, sleep for five straight days.....WOO HOO!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment