Our second day of diving had us a little closer to home diving in Grace Bay - the same area as our condo. The dive sites are part of the Princess Alexandria national park and marine reserve. Just like West Caicos, the dive sites are on the edge of a very deep, steep wall going from about 50ft down to 6000ft.
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The Fisharts
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Lots to see at all depths here too, starting with a little balloonfish.
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| Foureyed butterflyfish |
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Christmas tree worms
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| Honeycomb cowfish |
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| Blue tang |
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| Butterflyfish spotfin |
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| Fan coral |
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| Lionfish |
The second dive started with a fairly deep descent where I found someone had the same idea as me - crab dinner. But they beat me to it.
Lionfishes everywhere. They are generally considered an invasive species and aggressively displace endemic fish. Apparently they used to be culled by divers here by netting and taking them to the boat for disposal. Despite the lack of fish blood in the water, the distress of the fish was enough to attract and influence shark behaviour. The association of divers with tanks and distressed fish was becoming a hazardous nuisance. So no more rounding up the naughty lionfish for now.
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Caribbean reef shark
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| Balloonfish |
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| Fairy basslet and sheet coral |
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| Spotted lobster |
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| Spiny lobster and his lady lobster |
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| Spotted trunkfish |
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| Fairy basslet |
It was a somewhat shorter day of diving because the boat ride was only 20 minutes each direction. For the afternoon we zipped to the grocery store to pull together dinner. It's a fairly religious island based on the number of churches and the fact that lots of places were closed Easter weekend. We didn't want to risk starving, so a sausage BBQ at the condo was just the ticket.
Also, we decided to get Nitrox (enriched air) certified. Normal scuba tanks are 21% oxygen, but enriched tanks are usually 32-36% oxygen. It can greatly increase your dive time, especially at greater depths, but you have to be certified and understand the risks. So studying time this afternoon and test tomorrow morning.
Nothing like exams to make a relaxing vacation...
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