Happy Birthday Chris
Our favourite dive recently was on the 4th March. Perfect day! After a period of grey skies and choppy conditions, the ocean was calm, inviting and full of promise.
Keen local diver, Chris Boland, was celebrating his %* birthday. The birthday rule on a Wet’n’Dry trip means the birthday boy/girl gets a cake and the choice of company and dives. The boat started the day covered in balloons and Happy Birthday signs that were soon off with the wind. Luckily the conditions lasted longer than the decorations.
Dive # 1: Max Depth = 30m. Dive time = 50min + 5 min safety stop at 5m. Visibility = 25+m
First dive. Chris chose Perpendicular Wall, one of the steepest drop offs on the island, renowned for its stunning gorgonian fans and breathtaking vistas. On this occasion the visibility was approximately 25+m with just a mild current in the usual direction: West around the point.
Apart from the everyday fantastic features and the resident macros, Leaf scorpion fish, nudis and lionfish; Perpendicular Wall offered up plenty of big fish to keep the blue crew happy. Including a big mob of rainbow runner, dog-tooth tuna, trevally, a few reef sharks and one “big, big shark” that was too far out to be identified. With a bit of encouragement from Hama’s ‘shark whisperer’, 10 x silky sharks materialised off the reef to check out our divers near to the surface.
Surface interval is never dull and today was no exception with the Spinner dolphin’s new recruits putting on a performance for the divers. A little fellow attempted an aerial spin-twist (9.5 degrees of difficulty), but didn’t get the lift he needed to execute the jump and was sent back to the practice room. The judges [divers]were distracted from their disappointment by the arrival of the chocolate birthday cake and other tuneful festivities until the second dive at the Fuel Buoys.
Dive # 2: Max Depth = 20m. Dive time = 50min + 5 min safety stop at 5m. Visibility = 20m
The ‘Fuel Buoys’, located just around the corner from our house reef Flying Fish Cove, keep the fuel ships secure when offloading the diesel we use to make electricity on the island. They are also home to our friendly 10ft bronze whaler Hoover, who got the name from his habit of cleaning up after local fisherman who regularly stop in this quiet bay to fillet their catch. This is also the reason a large contingent of Giant Trevally’s (GT’s) can sometimes be found lurking around this site.
Although the name may not suggest ‘exotic destination’, it is an excellent place to find elusive and mysterious little creatures, if you are prepared to nose around a bit. On this occasion, Steve managed to lose yet another pointy stick doing just that, or was it the tiger shark he spotted in the deep that caused him to lose his grip?
A great day on the water, back to the Cove by 12:40pm, plenty of time to prepare for a different kind of liquid celebration!