Breakfast at 7am was cheese omelettes and English muffins. After breakfast the captain moved the boat to the Blue Hole. Jacques Cousteau made the Blue Hole famous in the 70's when he spent a year researching it. It's a collapsed cave system whose top is 1000 feet across, and the whole thing is about 400 feet deep. The walls go almost straight down until the 110 foot level, then they slope away from the center. Since the dive would be between 110 and 130 feet, with only 8 minutes of bottom time, this dive was done as a guided dive. We all entered the water together and then descended diagonally along the wall to 110 feet. At that point we started to see huge stalactites hanging from above and we could swim between them.

Look at the size of those eyes!

Diving The Blue Hole

Feather Duster Worm

Scrawled Filefish

We ended up hitting 140 feet at one point, the deepest we've ever gone, and probably as deep as we'll ever go. As we passed 100 feet Rick noticed a bit of dizziness, probably a bit of nitrogen narcosis; Randy didn't seem to experience it. After 8 minutes we ascended slowly to 20 feet where we did our first safety stop. Then we did a second safety stop at 10 feet where Rick found a small octopus under a coral almost right under the boat.

Blue Tunicates

Three lobsters under a rock

Nassau Grouper

Yellowtails looking for scraps

Back aboard we moved the boat to Half Moon Cay where a bunch of us went ashore to see the bird sanctuary and walked along the beach. We saw the old lighthouse that withstood many hurricanes, along with the new automated tower right next to it. Getting back to the boat took a bit longer, as we had to be ferried 4 at a time in the dinghy since there was no big boat available.

Pluma

The reefs are tough on some ships!

Booby Bird

Iguanas are surprisingly good climbers!

Lunch was barbecued chicken sandwiches, which were eaten with a fantastic Caribbean backdrop: crystal clear blue-green water with a palm tree covered island in the background. Very relaxing! After lunch we moved back to Long Cay for diving at a site named Quebrada (which means broken, referring to some broken up coral heads in the area). The site had another wall (yay!) with lots and lots of fish. We saw a scrawled filefish and a spotted eel along the wall. There were some beautiful blue tunicates on a piece of red coral. Three lobsters were all crowded under a small ledge, with their antenna all twitching. On the way back to the boat Randy followed a trumpet fish around, marveling at how easily it blended in with some of the soft corals. While we were hanging out on our safety stop we had fun chasing the yellowtails and horse eyed jacks under the boat around.

Another Booby Bird

The old lighthouse

Shore crew

After an hour on the surface, Rick and Randy headed back down for the late afternoon dive with Laurie. We headed down along the wall and saw a huge hermit crab, about the size of a soccer ball crawling along. Below it we saw a big crab, and then Rick spotted a turtle down at about 95 feet. We watched him munching on a sponge for a bit, then he sort of fell sideways and swam slowly towards the top of the wall. As we ascended we saw a scralwed cowfish poking along and Rick almost fell into a giant sponge . We then swam back towards the boat along the top edge of the wall. We saw a barracuda hanging out almost motionless at a cleaning station, then a reticulate moray eel that was about a foot out of it's hole. A tarpon and a pluma rounded out the fish we saw.

Look Ma, no hands!

Spotfin Hogfish

Can you spot the Trumpetfish?

He was the size of a soccer ball!

For the night dive Rick was on a mission to find octopus! The first thing we saw was a squid that was about 8 inches long. He hung around for a while and let us take a bunch of pictures. Rick was then off again and we saw an indigo hamlet and a sleeping parrot fish. Next up was a big porcupinefish, almost two feet long. Then Rick found what he was looking for, an octopus! He was slithering over a rock, then went out across the sand and onto another rock, changing colors as he went.

Turtle munching on a sponge

Scrawled Cowfish

Barracuda at a cleaning station

Reticulate Moray Eel.

We stayed and watched him for a bit, then Rick was off again, still on the hunt! He found yet another octopus slithering around and then a big crab crawling along the sand. He had really outdone himself on the fish-finding front! Back on board we showed the pictures to some of the other passengers, some of them joked that they wanted to follow Rick around the next night!

Giant crab

Honeycomb cowfish

Squid posing for his cameo

Indigo Hamlet

Howard and Michelle Hall showed a video on the making of "Coral Reef Adventure" and talked a bit about how they made the movie, which everyone really enjoyed. Afterwards we headed up to bed and went right to sleep, it had been a busy day!

Sleeping Parrotfish

Giant Porcupinefish

Octopus!

His color changes were amazing!