Pretty soon things got even more interesting when we happened upon a turtle... this time in shallow waters. I thought I was gonna get the photo of the day by catching up to the turtle and snapping this shot.
Little did I know that Ming had found a second turtle just behind me who was posing just in front of her.
We also got a look at a nifty flatworm perched on some coral. Or maybe it's a Spanish dancer, I forgot to ask the guide. Looking it up on Google didn't help since they both seem to have the same general shape and cool fluttering swimming motion. 10 points to the person who can identify it correctly for me:
This sea creature needs no identification.
As we swam back to our safety stop, I snapped this shot of our guide.
When diving below 6 meters for any length of time you shouldn't ascend faster than 10 meters per minute. A safety stop is also a common practice, where the divers spend three minutes or so suspended around five meters below sea level to be absolutely sure excess gas from the body is released to avoid decompression sickness. This boat had a helpful bar at precisely the right depth equipped with a spare tank ready for anyone who ran out of air. I'd like to say this shot was carefully orchestrated to give the diver's perspective of waiting calmly on the bar, but really I accidentally snapped this photo while fumbling to get my buoyancy under control:
Our second dive of the day started off with more worms... well, actually this is just a single worm of sorts with a bunch of tentacles which are splayed out over the coral. If you touch one, they all quickly retract back into the cave where the body of the animal remains hidden.
We moved on to find more creepy crawlies. There are over 3,000 species of nudibranch. Here's one.
Here's another.
At least 2,998 to go. While on our nudibranch hunt we almost didn't notice this reef shark swimming past; it might be hard to spot in this picture. It's just a meter long and it's way off in the distance. If you squint harder, you might also see a colossal squid. If you don't see either within a few minutes, try crossing your eyes and then slowly uncross them.
One certainly works up an appetite while diving. The boat had its own chef who cooked us up three hot meals each day. Here's the cafeteria... which come to think of it, probably has a special name if it's on a boat.
For our last dive, we moved over to Moore reef. This dive site was home to some giant clams, which Ming and I were excited about. Liz, our intrepid dive guide in training, assured us that we'd be able to track one down. I was confident I could out-swim the beast, since it pretty much glues itself in place. This clam's main mode of defense is camouflage. When they are closed they look as though they're just another part of the surrounding coral. After swimming around for a while, I was about to give up hope, when suddenly we spotted this guy on a coral wall. He was as big as my head.
Ming was busy snapping photos of the clam above when I noticed the guide trying to get our attention. I turned around to see the biggest clam I'd ever seen. This guy was not hard to spot... but Ming was still fixated on the comparatively tiny clam on the coral wall. I had to swim to her and physically turn her around so that she could snap this picture of me... with my eyes closed. Oh well.
We got one of the two of us too. When diving, they told us to stick out the pinky when giving the thumbs up to differentiate the hand signal from the one that means, "let's ascend to the surface." Ming took it a step further and turned it into that Hawaiian "hang loose" symbol.
Here's a fish getting dangerously close to the giant clam. Well, it's probably not as dangerous as it looks since clams don't actually eat fish... but they look like they should be the venus flytraps of the sea. But alas, I don't think this giant clam can even close its shell entirely anymore.
To prove I actually did open my eyes underwater, I've included this shot.
I guess Ming's actually going to the surface in this one.
Maybe not. We continued on through some beautiful coral.
Tiny colorful fish swim through the branches.
Ming and Liz swam on ahead while I was taking coral pictures when I suddenly noticed an odd spot in a crevice of a coral covered rock. I wasn't sure what it was, but I didn't want to leave it without getting an answer. Unfortunately Ming and Liz were swimming on ahead blissfully unaware that I had stopped 5 meters back to look at this thing.
There aren't a lot of ways to do long distance signaling in the water... especially when your dive buddies aren't even looking at you. Whistling, for instance, is not an option. The guides have special devices that make a rather loud quacking sound underwater. Without that device, I thought, I was out of luck... until I remembered I was married. The only two pieces of metal that I could conceivably clank together were my wedding ring and the aluminum tank on my back. The metallic tapping was enough to get Ming to turn around, and once Ming disappeared from Liz's peripheral vision, Liz turned around as well.
After everyone gathered around the rock I was staring at, it took another couple minutes of pointing and questioning looks before Liz finally saw why I'd stopped. It didn't help that we'd kicked up a lot of debris in the process of getting into position. Here's what we were seeing. Can you guess what it is?
20 points if you guessed shark. Another 10 points for knowing the species: it's an Epaulette Shark. The white ringed dark splotch gives it away if you know your sharks... which I didn't... I just thought it looked cool. I didn't even know it was a shark until Liz waved over another guide and pointed and waved for another few minutes to no avail before putting up the universal signal for shark: a single hand held up to her head to symbolize the dorsal fin. Unfortunately, this guy was tucked in pretty deep, so we didn't get a better look, let alone a better picture.
We moved on to some other marine life that was more willing to sit out in the open for photos.
We ended the dive with a few shots of this colorful starfish.
That wraps up our 6 dives on Kangaroo Explorer (the name of our live-aboard.) I took a nap on the sun deck while we waited for the ferry boat to arrive.
Most of the passengers were leaving the day we were, so I guess we did well timing-wise. The weather was great too. It was never rocky to the point of seasickness (like some dive boats I've been on in Florida.).
That said, I'm not sure I could handle that schedule for more than a night or maybe two. Technically you can do up to four dives a day, every day, until you disembark. We were happy with our one-night, but also looking forward to putting our feet on some firm ground. We still had a couple nights in Cairns, so we picked up a rental car on the way back to our accommodations.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Cairns, Australia
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