Night Diving vs. Day Diving

We were very excited to go on a night dive. We have had some fantastic experiences in the past-seeing  octopi (octopuses, octopodes- now our preferred plural) mating, Moray eel hunting and parrot fish lodging themselves in rocks to sleep. 

This night dive was disappointing, very few fish, no eels, and no octopodes (sort of rhymes with Euripides). Night dives are typically shallower than those done in the day, so our dive master took us to a site with numerous small channels to explore. Unfortunately because the channels were narrow, we had to get close to the coral to see anything- and I saw 6 Lion fish- one uncomfortably close- and many sea urchins. We were quite surprised to see all the urchins- and also a bit disconcerted. Apparently the urchins come out at night to hunt and because we were in the canyons we had to be very careful not to bump into them, and there were a lot of them! The most striking thing about them was shining the light on them and seeing 5 red rings on the top. I never would have guessed.

The next day was our last dive (a day dive) and it was spectacular. It felt as if all the sea creatures were out to bid us farewell. We started off seeing a spotted eel in the sand, 2 moray eels in caves, lobsters, groupers, the urchins had returned to their crevasses, tucked away with only the spines protruding. Snappers and Groupers and Jacks in schools.

 The Groupers have adopted a new behavior. They swoop down next to overhangs and crevasses, repeating the action numerous times. If you follow their motions and look under the ledge you will often see a Lion Fish. The Groupers have learned that divers can spear the Lion Fish and feed them to the Groupers. Groupers will not hunt the Lion Fish on their own, but will readily swallow any dead Lion Fish- and obviously they relish it- judging by their behavior.

 We finished the dive spotting a turtle we nicknamed Stumpy- one of its flippers and part of its shell had been chomped by something. It was a wonderful way to end a diving vacation- and it certainly left us dreaming of possibilities for the next destination.