Fantastic conditions

This was a busy week-end with notable visits by a group from Maputo, and Trish and Graham stopping on their way through Africa.

The conditions were the best I've had in Bilene in the last month. The wind had shifted around quite a bit over the past few days, flattening the sea. The calm swell made the launch through the mouth very easy, the smoothest rides we've had so far.


As we dropped, a school of Kingfish circled around us. I'm not sure whether they are resident on the reef, or whether there's a different school every time we dive at Shark Alley.

More photos from the dive here

On this dive, I noticed what I think is an anemone, maybe a tube anemone, but if anyone could confirm, I would appreciate it. When approached, it retracts into the leathery foot very quickly.
If you look at the other pictures, there's another photo of a similarly behaving "anemone", of a different colour.

More photos from the dive here

Some sad news: we went out to look at the seahorses, really struggled to find some, and while we were swimming around some of our group on the beach saw local fishermen with handfuls of seahorses they had just caught. My suspicion is thus confirmed: the seahorses in that spot have been fished out...

More about that in a different post...

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

A couple of dives...

There are very few of us on the boat today, so we load it with spare cylinders and head out for a double-tank dive.
The wind of the previous night has created a cross swell that is a little unpleasant for the ride, but it's still better than some of the conditions we had a couple of weeks ago.
Our first destination, since we enjoyed the dive there so much two days prior, is Shark Alley. On our previous visit, we explored the Northern side, so this time we drop on the South end of the reef.
The viz is not as good as two days ago, but we don't need that much to see the profusion of fish greeting us under the surface.
The reef on this side is very interesting, with huge boulders creating overhangs and caves where the fish seek refuge.
We even see a honeycomb moray eel completely out of its hole, inside a shallow cave.

There is also a profusion of Twobar Clownfish, small and big (Cobus and Ian remark they've seen a pair of the biggest they've ever seen on this dive)

We surface after 46 minutes, having gone all the way to Pride Rock, with still some air to spare, but wanting to keep a decent amount of bottom dive for our next dive.
After changing cylinders, comparing our impressions about the dive, having a bite to eat (for some of us), and stretching our Surface Interval Time, we slowly travel to Babylon.
As is usual on this reef, a huge amount of fish, big and small, awaits us.  One notable encounter is with a curious Trumpetfish:

and of course the encounter with the Scorpionfish just before the end of the dive:

( More photos of this dive here )

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)