Tuesday, March 25, 2003
The boat moved around 5:30 a.m. and we sat at Lama Shoals for the morning. The dive has a bit of current off the front with big schools of jacks and tuna, lovely sea fans, anemones and a nice lionfish. The highlight was Digger doing his tightrope walk on the hangline, and then removing his fins and walking upside down on the bottom of the boat's hull - I actually wished I had a camera.

Just before the second dive, there was a sailfish hunting off the bow of the boat - we could see his sail cutting through the water as he chased the fish. Susan and I sat out the next dive and talked to Dickie. He drew maps for us of the local area with the dive sites we had visited.

We did another drift dive - Swamp Tinny. There were terrific soft corals, including many anemones and bubble corals containing a variety of fish, shrimp and crabs.

Lunch was a delicious shrimp risotto, prosciutto and melons, salad. We arrived at Dickie's Place in the early afternoon and the dugouts began arriving.

I love this dive site - we dove here last year and it was an amazing site. We were in the water by 3:00 and weren't disappointed again this year - nudebranchs, pipe fish of all kinds, mantis shrimp, decorator crabs, sand divers, a tiny dwarf lion fish. After an hour and a quarter, I came up and waited for fifteen minutes while they filled my tank and went back in for another hour.

Here is the dwarf lionfish - keep in mind that this fish is only the size of a quarter!

After a hot shower and change of clothes, we began watching the latest Star Wars movie. We stopped it for dinner - steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, and squash with a very nice 1994 Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon. Dessert was a terrific brie cheese. I said goodbye to Dickie and went to bed.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003
We motored all night and arrived near Father's Reef around 7:00. It was overcast at first, but it quickly cleared up.

Our first dive was at Leslie's Knob. A pretty wall and reef with lots of nudebranchs, octopus and a very curious silvertip.

Next dive was at Shaggy's Reef. Nelson put down a bait bucket - a ventilated lidded bucket filled with fish heads - to bring the sharks in. It worked a little - one silvertip was enticed. Jayne also found a nice anemone with a baby anemone fish smaller than my pinkie nail. After a rest, we moved further down to South Shaggy. A bait bucket was put down and we again had one interested party - Ed even had a head-on collision between shark and video camera! There were also several nice nudebranchs on the reef.

Neil and Gary did the night dive - the visibility was so good that the rest of us ("dive voyeurs") could stand on the bow, look into the water, and see the fish illuminated below . There were some small creatures on the surface that seemed to give off blobs of phosphoresence as a defense mechanism, leaving little trails in the water. We also spotted an airplane flying overhead and a LEO (low earth orbit) satellite.

Dinner was delicious - antipasto, salad, lasagna, and cheesecake for dessert. Afterwards we finished watching "Star Wars" - well, everyone else did but I fell asleep again. I think I have Mom's movie affliction - a half hour and then asleep.

Thursday, March 27, 2003
The AC is being fussy again - it stopped working sometime during the night and it got pretty stuffy. Nonetheless I slept until the knock on my door at 6:00. A beautiful sunrise, and we were in the water at Jayne's Gully by 6:30.

We did two dives there, then moved to Elaine's Reef. Again, a great reef with tons of stuff on the walls and a rather barren reef top that yielded a trove of hidden surprises.

After a nap, the afternoon dive was at Norman's Knob. The highlight for me was taking a banana down and hand feeding the batfish. My ears were giving me a little trouble equalizing so I made it a short dive.

Dinner was roast chicken and potatoes, with a passionfruit tart for dessert.