- Messages
- 16,091
- Reaction score
- 24
- # of dives
OH MY GOODNESS!
Today we went for our first dive to the YO. Conditions were excellent. No current, vis about 60-70'ft. Lots of turtles, found a juv. Frogfish, lots of eels...Found another platinum ring
D)....and at the end of the dive the sub came by.
For the second dive I heard the DM mention that we were going to Kaiser Reef. My heart sank. We usually don't go there because it is a just empty reef. If you get real lucky you get to see a shark over under the one overhangs...maybe a horned helmet...and that is about it.
The captain was telling us that at this and this heading you'll find a nice reef so we jumped in and started heading...somewhere. Lots of sand, a patch of coral here and there. On the one coral head I found a Green Lion fish and a leaf scorpion and a marble shrimp. I don't find very many green lions (have found maybe 4 or 5 in 4 years) and it was the first time I saw a marble shrimp. So I thought cool, not bad at all.
Then we swim a bit more and an eagle ray glides by. Rare to see them in shallow water...at the same moment we start hearing dolphins....we look the other way and this HUGE stingray goes by...my second stingray in 4 years...The tail alone was around 5' long, just beautiful...we follow him for a bit, until he speeds up and vanishes.
So we keep going...keep hearing the dolphins, getting louder now. We're always checking over our heads to see if we might see them.
We decide to head back, Scuba Drew passes a patch of coral and motions us to come and look...we look and there in the coral head are 5....F-I-V-E green lion fish, all different sizes...and a juv. Devils scorpion, looking so different without all the stuff growing on it.
After looking for a while we move on. Something catches my eye and I see an octopus...all spiky trying to blend in. When he realizes that I saw him he changes colors and starts to retract into his cave.....I call the others. Together we see the octopus sliding into the hole dragging the body of a peacock grouper after himself. Hard to tell if it made the kill or if it was eating leftovers...but it was just that jaw dropping moment ...How often do you get to see something like this?
So we return to the boat and finish up the dive.... THEN a pod (40 or so) of dolphins comes by....Naturally I was already on the boat - but I was still able to watch them hang around the surface.
To sum it all up, we don't really know where we were and might not find it again, but I'll never complain about Kaiser Reef again!
Today we went for our first dive to the YO. Conditions were excellent. No current, vis about 60-70'ft. Lots of turtles, found a juv. Frogfish, lots of eels...Found another platinum ring
D)....and at the end of the dive the sub came by.For the second dive I heard the DM mention that we were going to Kaiser Reef. My heart sank. We usually don't go there because it is a just empty reef. If you get real lucky you get to see a shark over under the one overhangs...maybe a horned helmet...and that is about it.
The captain was telling us that at this and this heading you'll find a nice reef so we jumped in and started heading...somewhere. Lots of sand, a patch of coral here and there. On the one coral head I found a Green Lion fish and a leaf scorpion and a marble shrimp. I don't find very many green lions (have found maybe 4 or 5 in 4 years) and it was the first time I saw a marble shrimp. So I thought cool, not bad at all.
Then we swim a bit more and an eagle ray glides by. Rare to see them in shallow water...at the same moment we start hearing dolphins....we look the other way and this HUGE stingray goes by...my second stingray in 4 years...The tail alone was around 5' long, just beautiful...we follow him for a bit, until he speeds up and vanishes.
So we keep going...keep hearing the dolphins, getting louder now. We're always checking over our heads to see if we might see them.
We decide to head back, Scuba Drew passes a patch of coral and motions us to come and look...we look and there in the coral head are 5....F-I-V-E green lion fish, all different sizes...and a juv. Devils scorpion, looking so different without all the stuff growing on it.
After looking for a while we move on. Something catches my eye and I see an octopus...all spiky trying to blend in. When he realizes that I saw him he changes colors and starts to retract into his cave.....I call the others. Together we see the octopus sliding into the hole dragging the body of a peacock grouper after himself. Hard to tell if it made the kill or if it was eating leftovers...but it was just that jaw dropping moment ...How often do you get to see something like this?
So we return to the boat and finish up the dive.... THEN a pod (40 or so) of dolphins comes by....Naturally I was already on the boat - but I was still able to watch them hang around the surface.
To sum it all up, we don't really know where we were and might not find it again, but I'll never complain about Kaiser Reef again!
