I was woken up early in the morning by a rooster’s call and got ready for the day. Following a good breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and bacon, we had a boat briefing then were ready to go out for our dives. We boarded the twin sister and I found my bcd and tank and put my diving equipment next to it. After a short boat ride we suited up at the stern of the boat. On the first dive I buddied up with Curry and we descended with the group. There were several more species of fish I saw than on he snorkel, these include: peacock flounder, white-spotted filefish, royal gamma basslet, beaugregory, and a black durgon filefish. The Black Durgon was my favorite fish of the dive with it’s fluorescent white stripes on the boundary between its fins and jet black body. A single black durgon darted from behind a sea fan into my vision about halfway into the dive. Towards the front of its head upon further inspection, a dark-blue/green hue is visible. The black durgon lives in water ranging from 15-115ft and their omnivorous diet consists mostly of small shrimp, zooplankton, algae, and other marine plant life. A short time later in the dive, I saw a long, constant train of more than a thousand blue tang. They seemed to come out of nowhere and formed a solid stream moving in one direction until Mr. Allen swam through interrupting them. We finished the first dive as a group with our safety stop.
When we arrived at the site of our second dive we had about 15 minutes to hang out which resulted in many dives and flips off of the second story of the boat. After we suited up, we hopped in the water and descended in our buddy groups instead of as a group. I was unable to equalize quickly during the beginning of the dive which resulted in me being slightly shallower than the group. This gave me the opportunity to see a hawksbill sea turtle come over the wall and swim over the group while they were looking down at the coral and other fish. A hawksbill can be identified by its distinct hawk-like beak and its its several points at the back of its teardrop shaped top shell. I’m glad I was able to see it because hawksbills are critically endangered On the way back to the boat Michael and I saw a trumpet fish which was very cool to see. It was strange to see their skinny, elongated, brownish-yellow body compared to the more tropical fish we saw along both dives. We ascended in buddy pairs and went back to the resort of lunch. I took a nap until dinner and then we had a brief presentation on sea turtles. I am excited for the deep dive and the turtle sanctuary tomorrow.
