West Caicos - Dives 5, 6 & 7

It's big dive day today! 8.5 hours and three tanks. Good thing we all passed our Nitrox certification test yesterday. With Enriched Air our dive times are close to one-hour each. Unless your super conservative dive watch doesn't want you to have any fun and beeps aggressively over the smallest things.

Back in the big Dive Provo boat, we headed a little more than an hour out to West Caicos. Our first dive of the day was at a spot called Boat Cove. The max depth on this dive was 26.8m (87 ft) down along the wall - the underwater plateau and shelf that surround all the islands and descends down 1800m (6000ft). It was still 26C down on the shelf.

Waiting to greet us was a decent sized Caribbean reef shark. He did not want my crushingly desperate love and kisses, deciding to remain aloof with his remora wingman.

We saw our customary lionfish early on as well. I don't think we've had a dive without at least one.

Then we were treated to something truly special - the largest green moray eel I have ever seen. He had to be at least 1.2m (4 ft) long and 20cm wide. What's more, he wasn't just chillin' in a craggy crevice, he was actively swimming around the reef before settling in again.

Smiling oh so pretty for the camera with his jaws full of jagged teeth.

A new sharkie friend eyed us up as four photographers crashed the eel's solitude.

And an adventurous green sea turtle went casually cruising by too.

Although seeing the big creatures is great, some of the smaller, harder to spot, reclusive creatures are my favourites. We spotted a couple of clusters of Peteron's cleaner shrimp manning their car wash style stations. If you place your hand gently by the shrimp, she can give you a pretty good manicure. Not that we touched the wildlife in the marine reserve...

I found these two little cleaning gobies open for business under a coral overhang. They swam up to give my camera lens and screen a good parasite purge, but I'm sure were disappointed by the lack of food.

You have to approach the star horseshoe worms cautiously or they'll retreat before you can see the wide variety of patterns they sport. 

This little coney was out and about and very interested in the dive light.

Fairy basslets always seem to hang in pairs.

I found this little Goldentail moray just before the end of the dive. 

Dive two of the day took us to Land of Giants and 22.3m (73ft) down the wall again. Being somewhat uncooperative was a large Blue angelfish.

A juvenile lionfish fanned out vey nicely for me!

This super cool Spotted Drum was firmly in the not behaving for photos camp. I had never seen one before and it was about 30cm long.

This beauty of a Rock Beauty was out on a little discovery mission.

More Peterson's cleaner shrimp open for business.

This upside down lionfish finally gave me a chance to capture his cool goaty beardy beard.

I think this little amputee turtle is a Hawksbill turtle, but I have a hard time telling the Green sea turtles and Hawksbills apart.

This French Grunt school was showing me the way through the reef.

Time for dive three at a spot called The Diveway featuring a sandbar that flows from the island of West Provo through the shelf and down the wall. 

The most interesting little guy was waiting for me down the wall - a spotted moray in front of some kind of squishy sea anemone.

The requisite lionfish being dramatic. Diva.

There are a multitude of colours of Christmas tree worms, but again you have to be quick before they zip back into their tuby bits.

Phew! That was a long day of diving. Back to Provo with a windy and fun hour-long boat ride.

We went to Fresh Catch seafood restaurant for dinner where there was an amazing buffet. For $40 I got two half lobster tails, grouper in mango sauce, cracked conch, blackened chicken, spicy ribs, coleslaw, salad, baked mac and cheese, rum punch and rum cake. Best. Deal. Ever.