Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

Did a couple of neat dives today. Went out for a shark dive in the morning. The boat ride out was pretty rough. Small open boat on choppy waters. The dive itself was dead simple. Drop to 70ft and kneel on the bottom for a while. Like the Manta dive in Hawaii, but without the added complication of darkness.

The sharks were beautiful. There were about a dozen in view at any time, and they ranged from about four feet long to seven or eight. They're well trained to expect a feeding by regular visits by a tour with a chum bucket. They came pretty close to us, definitely within arm's reach. You could see the muscle ripple under their sleek skins.

There were a bunch of smaller fish that hang around with the sharks, including little guys who swim just ahead or just under the sharks. Seems like a strange ecological niche to swim right in front of a shark's mouth.

Several large, pretty groupers where in the area too. They cam right up to divers and let some of them touch them.

After the chum had been eaten, most of the sharks left, and we had a chance to look around. I found a tiny tooth on the sea floor.

This afternoon, we dove Mary's Place, which featured a couple of crevasses, one open above, and the other with some uneven rock overhead. It was like the entrance to Valley of the Kings, but moreso. The light was spectacular. I tried taking more pictures, but I suspect that I utterly failed to capture the feel of it.

Afterwards, we went to the top of the wall, where parrotfish were mating. They swim around in big schools, then smaller packs dart up towards the surface. In the same area, I also saw an inflated pufferfish, a trumpetfish, and a beautiful Queen angelfish.