After yet another great breakfast (french toast with cream cheese!) we got ready for the morning dives. We had moved to a site called Tarpon Cave. When we jumped in we discovered great visibility, something like 120 feet. It was really awesome to descend to the bottom and look back up and clearly see the boat floating above us and watch the other divers descending. We swam across a sandy patch and then through some cuts in the coral. We swam back and forth through the swim-throughs, between 50 and 90 feet. As we made our way back to the boat we saw a couple of sting rays prowling around the grassy area under the boat looking for food. Randy tried to swim over to one, but did it a bit to quickly which the ray didn't like, causing him to swim quickly away.

Find the tiny Puffer...

Gray Angel

Peek-a-boo!

Damselfish in some Staghorn coral

For the second dive we followed Caroline and Chris to the entrance to a swim-through. Chris went first and then video taped us coming through from below. The entrance was at about 50 feet, with the exit at 90 feet out along the wall. At that point Fred stayed with Caroline to complete his 'deep dive' exercise for his dive course. Rick and Randy swam along through the cuts in the coral, spotting a grouper and some tarpon. Rick's mask was fogging up quite a bit, and we had used up lots of air when we were down deep, so we headed back to the boat after about 40 minutes.

Spiny Sea Fan

Hi!!!

Stingray cruising the plains

120' visibility

Lunch was pizza, and there were five different kinds! Along with creme of mushroom soup, it was a fantastic lunch. Afterwards Randy weeded through pictures and sorted out the blurry ones and pictures with thumbs in them. Rick went upstairs and took a nap, as did most of the rest of the boat. At 2pm everyone slowly made their way to the dive deck for the briefing, everyone looking like they just woke up. The boat had been moved to a site named Painted Wall, which gets it's name from the tunicates of different colors which are found there. The first thing we saw was a fairy basslet as we headed towards the wall. As we went down along the wall we saw some tunicates and then some Christmas tree worms sticking out of some brain coral as we swam back to the boat.

One of our favorite pictures from the trip

A big Grouper

Fairy Basslet

Blue Chromas

Not too many people went in for the afternoon dive; we went in with Laurie for a short dive. We went in the opposite direction from the previous dive. There wasn't too much swimming around, though we did see a grouper, a scrawled filefish being cleaned and some different kinds of soft corals. On the way back we saw a couple of barracuda at a cleaning station, though they moved away as soon as the flash from the camera hit them. At that point we were getting a bit chilled (Rick only had his shorty suit on), so we climbed out of the water and went straight to the hot tub to warm up. It felt great!

Christmas Tree Worm on a Brain Coral

Tarpon lurking everywhere!

Scrawled Filefish

Yellowstripe

Dinner was another delicious meal, pork shops and some baked fish. The key lime pie was especially good. After dinner we decided that we were pretty tired so we'd sit out the night dive. It gave us some time to sit and relax, which was great. It turned out no one found an octopus on the night dive, Rick would have to find one the next night to make up for it!