And the turtles, of course…. All the turtles are free – As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be. ~ Yertle the Turtle (Dr. Seuss)
Dive two today went much better. My earlier attempt at a 90 foot ledge ended in my sitting on the boat watching the drift flag move along the top of the water. This time I was going to dive whether my computer cooperated or not. And it didn’t…but I dove.
As I giant strided off the back of the boat my finger spool came alive and mad a mad dash for freedom. I “reeled in” the errant line as I descended on a 75 fsw reef called Tunnels. Upon reaching the bottom I had a birds nest of thin braided line and made quick work of securing it in a tight although unusable manner and proceeded to look about. I was searching for shark and I was quickly rewarded with the sight of a caribbean reef shark taking off into the sand. Immediately followed by his best friend. Woo Hoo!
Within minutes my computer proceeded to have its second temper tantrum but this time I was just going to ride it out and see the sights.
Several more reef sharks moved underneath us. The visibility was between 50 and 70 feet and you could look off into the sand as they swam away.
Just off the reef we came across a large hawksbill turtle resting in the sand. These are no small turtles. This one was between 3 and 4 feet in length and just sat watching us as much as we were him. But this is a drift dive and the current was moving along at a good clip so finning against it was tiring and we moved on.
Several large deep ledges appeared on the reefs sides and at times the ledges connected forming short archways which were the inspiration for the reefs name…Tunnels.
We explored under and about and quickly learned to peak before swimming in as several nurse sharks were resting and ultimately rousted from under the ledge by our curiousness. While nurse sharks are the puppy dogs of the shark world….I had been warned top side not to pet them…..does my reputation extend all the way to Jupiter, Florida? Jeesh.
The race of diver and shark to get out of the way did get the heart pumping though and we moved along. But still no lemon shark.
There was a great deal of other life on this reef also. Along with the variety of sponges and soft corals there were goliath grouper and French angel fish along with some hog fish and trigger fish and an assortment of tang, butterfly fish, fairy basselets and other colorful fish I cant yet name.
At 40 some minutes the last diver of the group was heading up and so I slowly followed giving one last look around. A lone nurse shark about 5-6 foot swam lazily in front of me and I finned in place and watched as she gracefully moved about. It was time for me to go though. All the rest of the divers were headed for the surface and I was the last one down. A tap of air out of my wing to start me on my way and as I rose from the sand to the top of the reef I came face to face almost with an enormous.. yellow … shark. I huge deep breath on my part quickly raised me a few feet higher and above my new best friend. This shark was easily 8 or 9 feet long and I was mesmerized by the yellow coloring. They are called lemon sharks for good reason. My friend was not as enamored of me as I of him and slowly swam along ignoring me as I hovered above. When he finally moved off I continued on up to my safety stop and valet pick up by the dive boat.
Gotta love drift diving. Float along…surface….wave and they come to you and pick you up. Think we could get the jersey Captains to do that?