Bye Bye Boat - Bidding Adieu to the Creatures and the Crew
It's the last morning on the dive boat, and an early one at that. The few remaining relatively healthy divers woke up before the dawn to gear up for our first of two dives today. In order to leave at least 24 hours of surface decompression time before our flights, we started early and will be done diving by about 10 in the morning. You have to leave time before flying to allow the disolved nitrogen built up in your bloodstream to dissapate (off-gas) safely. If you enter a high altitude (decreased pressure) environment, the nitrogen gas can form bubbles (aka decompression sickness) which can result in localized pain, paralysis, nuerologic symptoms, or death.
As Captain Charlie in Maui always says, spend the day after diving going "No higher than a barstool."
Anyways, we awoke to find the yacht moored at Black Beauty once again. This is the first time I've dove pre-dawn as usually scuba boats leaving from harbour, even the early ones, depart just at dawn. I'm excited to see what the crossover in nocturnal, diurnal and crepuscular residents will look like! So into the big blue pool we go.
Black-spotted ceratophyllidia (a type of nudibranch)
Banded Butterflyfish
A very hauty and uncooperative scrawled cowfish that I chased around for an inordinate amount of time
A white-spotted toadfish
Juvenile threespot damselfish
A little later on in the morning after coffee and breakfast, we headed back to the reef for the last dive of the trip. Even though we'd been diving for days and been on this reef several times, by sticking close to the Dive Master, I was introduced to creatures I hadn't seen before. There's always something new to discover under water!
A Norman's aglaja - a type of headshield slug
Here's my pinky fingernail for size comparison!
He's eely very sneaky
Photobombing Queen Angelfish
A teeny tiny maybe two milimetre unidentified species of headshield slug
Black-spotted ceratophyllidia (type of nudibranch)
If you look closely, you can see two black antennae among its spikes. Those are his gills!
It was a fanstastic week of diving with a fantastic crew in a fantastic locale. I was thrilled to spot almost everything on our diving wish list, but there was a distinct lack of sharks. I found the last dive breifing map to be particularily misleading...
Check out some of the weirdest, cutest and clumsiest of the creatures spotted underwater in Belize as well as a sneak peek at diving the Great Blue Hole in this video playlist.
This afternoon we disembark the boat for an on land (and in our case in-land) adventure - cave tubing! What? You thought we'd stay out of the water for a few hours after six days at sea? Ha! Nope. Trading salt water and sea creatures for running rivers and bats.
As Captain Charlie in Maui always says, spend the day after diving going "No higher than a barstool."
Anyways, we awoke to find the yacht moored at Black Beauty once again. This is the first time I've dove pre-dawn as usually scuba boats leaving from harbour, even the early ones, depart just at dawn. I'm excited to see what the crossover in nocturnal, diurnal and crepuscular residents will look like! So into the big blue pool we go.
A little later on in the morning after coffee and breakfast, we headed back to the reef for the last dive of the trip. Even though we'd been diving for days and been on this reef several times, by sticking close to the Dive Master, I was introduced to creatures I hadn't seen before. There's always something new to discover under water!
It was a fanstastic week of diving with a fantastic crew in a fantastic locale. I was thrilled to spot almost everything on our diving wish list, but there was a distinct lack of sharks. I found the last dive breifing map to be particularily misleading...
Check out some of the weirdest, cutest and clumsiest of the creatures spotted underwater in Belize as well as a sneak peek at diving the Great Blue Hole in this video playlist.
This afternoon we disembark the boat for an on land (and in our case in-land) adventure - cave tubing! What? You thought we'd stay out of the water for a few hours after six days at sea? Ha! Nope. Trading salt water and sea creatures for running rivers and bats.
Comments
Post a Comment