I was back with Jack's today--after all, they still had my gear. As mentioned above, Keller and I immediately renewed our wise cracking relationship.
The first site was right out of the harbor, primarily because we encountered a pod of spinner dolphins as we started out. We were right across from the great dive I had at rip-off reef, but I did not think this site had as much healthy coral. We saw another helmet chowing down on a collector urchin, a snowflake moray, a huge sleeping turtle, 3 octopuses (all together) a tiny speckled scorpion, and a pipe fish. Not a bad collection for 60 minutes of work.
The wind picked up a little and we headed north for the second site, at Sand Chutes. This was another site with lots of healthy coral in the shallows. My wife and friends had come along this day to snorkel, and they enjoyed it immensely. At 75 feet I saw a beautiful divider flatworm. There were not as many critters to behold here. I saw a small yellow tailed file fish and spent some time watching a cleaner wrasse trying to convince potential customers that they needed a cleaning, with varying degrees of success.
We were on a big boat with a lot of divers, but they had us divided up very effectively. Our group of 5 pretty much never saw any of the other divers. This day was also good supporting evidence for my response to pro divers who hide their professional status when they dive for fun. Because they knew my certification level, I was in a group of highly experienced divers who worked well together and were able to satisfy their dive needs without much attention from a divemaster.
