Mom and I went to St. Croix for the second time Dec 9-16th. I dove with SCUBA and had a great time. It was really nice diving with a shop that already knew me. We dove some sites I didn't do last time and a few that I had. I love the West Wall of Salt River. Just a really incredible dive.
Seemed the first 4 dives something minor went wrong on every dive with the last being my purge valve came out sometime between dives. What a surprise when I made that giant stride! They had a spare and I continued the dive. Matt, Kari and Dawn made sure I saw all the cool stuff. Like the three Spotted Wrays swimming by in a line, the scorpion fish, fireworm, lobster and flounder. I even saw two morrays, one huge green one and a spotted one. Other neat things I saw were a couple banded shrimp, barracuda and a very small yellow crab living on a barrel sponge.
The color has returned dramatically to the coral from the summer bleaching. I got a couple shots of polka dotted coral where the color hadn't come back completely yet. On one of the sites I found a brain coral that has a heart growing in it. That was pretty interesting and the pic came out pretty good.
My best shots were the last two days when I finally felt ready to get off of P mode and start playing with the F-Stops. Came out with several pics that I didn't need to do anything with. I couldn't get my external strobe to fire so I left it at the hotel and all the shots are with the camera flash. I think I got some of the best shots I have taken on these dives.
You can see the pics here http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=1387
Seemed the first 4 dives something minor went wrong on every dive with the last being my purge valve came out sometime between dives. What a surprise when I made that giant stride! They had a spare and I continued the dive. Matt, Kari and Dawn made sure I saw all the cool stuff. Like the three Spotted Wrays swimming by in a line, the scorpion fish, fireworm, lobster and flounder. I even saw two morrays, one huge green one and a spotted one. Other neat things I saw were a couple banded shrimp, barracuda and a very small yellow crab living on a barrel sponge.
The color has returned dramatically to the coral from the summer bleaching. I got a couple shots of polka dotted coral where the color hadn't come back completely yet. On one of the sites I found a brain coral that has a heart growing in it. That was pretty interesting and the pic came out pretty good.
My best shots were the last two days when I finally felt ready to get off of P mode and start playing with the F-Stops. Came out with several pics that I didn't need to do anything with. I couldn't get my external strobe to fire so I left it at the hotel and all the shots are with the camera flash. I think I got some of the best shots I have taken on these dives.
You can see the pics here http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=1387
