The day started with our first dive being at a sight called little tunnel, the previous sight from yesterday’s dive that had the large “towers” made of corral with caverns was named big tunnels and as the name implied this site was similar but with smaller with smaller caverns and at not as great a depth. As we descended and made our way around the slopping wall of corral a looked down into one of the canyons where I saw a very large moray eel dart under some coral. It headed in the opposite direction and I wasn’t able to get a closer look as it was quite deep and we were heading the other direction but I was still glad I was able to see one. Just as quickly as the eel had swam under me I heard our dive master Lucy tapping her tank to get our attention only a few feet in front of me a hawkbill turtle swam past us from above the coral out into the blue. As we neared the boat and began to ascend I saw some a couple of barracuda lurking under the boat, these barracuda where much smaller that the barracuda I had seen the day before after some discussion with Lee our boat captain I learned two things one young barracuda tend to hunt in small schools and as they age they become more solitary and two they actually hide in the boats shadow to hunt, allowing the boat to mask their own shadow as the ambush prey from above. On our second dive at a site called Hepp’s pipeline I was one of the first to be able to jump into the water almost immodestly when I looked down there was another hawksbill turtle coasting under us. I watched the turtle till I wasn’t able to see it anymore and then we all descended as we made our way around the a wall of overhanging coral the turtle reappeared swimming next to us. We swam with it for quite a while and were even able to watch it feed as it swam on top of some corral and began chewing on it. Turtles, specifically the hawksbill turtle are omnivorous and eat things from sea grass, to sponges, urchins and jellyfish. As we headed back our dive master pointed out a a very large lobster under a rock, the lobster species was a Spanish lobster one of the native species of the Islands and they can grow to be pretty large. The Spanish lobster is Bart of the slipper lobster family which are identified by there large antennae and lack of large front claws like that of a Maine lobster. Overall today’s dives where fun and we had a relaxed afternoon and I’m excited for what we will see tomorrow.
