Mantaaaaaa!

Big excitement! Shortly after we started descending, a Manta Ray came to see what all this agitation was about, and circled us for almost ten minutes.

The viz was rather good, so our group was spread over quite an area, and the Manta came over every single diver, more than once. We had all leisure to examine it, and the six Remoras that accompanied it.

This was really a good start of a dive that will remain in everyone's memory.

I didn't have my camera with me, so I'm relying on Gavin's generosity for the pictures in this post. One advantage to that is that for once there's a pic of me (hello Mom!) :

Gavin's mastery of the underwater colours is outstanding. Here is one of his pics, taken around 12m depth, using only natural light (no external lighting):

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

Daniel     ;-)

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     ;-)

Clearing water, and disappearing seahorses...

Went for a double tank dive today, at Shark Alley (which is becoming my favorite site) and Pride rock. The visibility has been steadily (although too slowly for my taste) improving, each dive reveals bigger and bigger pictures of the reefs structure.
As in previous dive, there was an amazing quantity of fish, big and small, which made the dive very enjoyable.

(More photos from this dive here )

In the late afternoon, we went to our usual spot in the lagoon to spot the seahorses, and I found it extremely difficult to find one, where we spotted dozens yesterday...

(More Seahorse photos here )

Was it too late in the day, was the tide wrong, did they all go to a party where we weren't invited?

Let's see tomorrow if we see them at a different time.

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

Daniel     ;-)