An early 6:30 am breakfast got us ready for the two dives ahead of us. Before we boarded the boat we where briefed on the basic rules and regulations, then allowed to grab our gear from the drying shack and head down to our boat, the Twin Sister. Once on the boat we where greeted by our two dive masters Lee and Lucy, then we made a short journey to the first dive site. As Lee briefed us on the dive he described what the terrain would be like and gave us some specific things we may want to look at, then geared up and jumped in the water. As we descended the first thing I noticed was the shear scape of the environment, the visibility for us was about 100 ft which was a completely different experience to the 10 ft visibility I had in the quarry I got certified. As my buddy and I reached a good “cruising depth” above the reef we followed the rest of the pack, looking around I saw a lot of the fish we saw on the initial snorkel like the four eyed butterfly fish and blue wrasse, but there was also a lot more parrotfish which was likely due to the increase in corral as the algae that grows on the coral is a main source of food for them. The most interesting experience for me on the first dive was the large canyon my buddy and I swam through, the canyon was formed by two reefs which dropped of sharply to the sandy floor. Whilst in the canyon we saw an extremely large French angelfish which was almost complexity black apart form specs yellow on the top of its body. After a little more searching we made are ascent back to the boat for our interval and to travel to the next dive cite. During our interval we dove from the boat and swam a little near the surface. Our second dive was a lot deeper than the first and and a different terrain, as we descended it looked like a plain of sand with bits of coral hear and there, once we reached the bottom and moved along there was a sharp drop of the plain. On this dive we noticed a lot more wildlife there, the first thing I noticed where the black durgon which swim in a very unique way which is hard to describe but the best way I can is to say a side ways stingray as the have large fins on there back and underside. I also noticed these fish which had very spiny dorsal fins which I had thought where lion fish but I later learned they are called squirrel fish. On our way back around the dive master, Lucy, pointed out a puffer fish that was swimming near us. I followed it for a bit to see if it would expand itself but gave up after thinking it wasn’t the best idea. After we surfaced I heard that some of the guys had seen and swam with a turtle which I wish I would’ve seen but the upcoming turtle sanctuary visit tomorrow should be fun and I look forward to it.
