Yellow Head Jawfish out of it’s hole.
For two consecutive years, I allowed all sorts of things to interfere with my diving. This year, I made a commitment to do better and get out once a month. January was the exception because of weather and other things. I also managed to let July get past me, although again, weather did play a part. The simple fact is, between my writing and other things I am involved with, I work essentially every day. That is not to say I work eight hours a day, but it is usually at least three. Much of it is unstructured in the traditional sense, although anyone who works deadlines and has meetings knows “unstructured” doesn’t equal “laid back”. Anyway, the point to the above is I genuinely have to schedule time to go dive and it can be tricky.
Friday meant sending out some early morning emails and having a wonderful husband who was going to take care of my dive gear after we returned to the dock so I could dash home, grab a quick lunch and get cleaned up for a mid-afternoon meeting. However, it all worked out and while we didn’t see any of the “big” stuff – correction – I missed the two sharks; the fish I like to watch were plentiful. Actually, I don’t mind not seeing sharks as long as Hubby gets to. There was a nice stingray and the reason I missed the shark on the first dive was I did have a special treat only I was able to enjoy. I’ll explain. Visibility was down more than I expected with it about forty feet. Hubby had a delightful young lady as a student and as I was swimming off to the side of them, I saw movement in the sand to my left. I wasn’t certain of what it was and swam closer, which put me to where the others were barely in sight. I realized what I was looking at was a pair of juvenile flounders, each about the size of a silver dollar. The flounder we get here are small and with their camouflage coloration, they’re very difficult to see unless they move. When they do move, they “flit” fairly rapidly across the sand. I glanced over to Hubby and the young lady to get their attention, but there was no way in that vis for them to see my gesture. If I tried to go get them and bring them back, the little flounders would have been long gone. So, I followed the fish for a few seconds, enjoying the sight and no, I don’t carry a camera.
We did also see a nice large green moray and some big snooks came through, plus I got to see my rock beauties among other of my favorites. Now all I have to do is try to squeeze in one more day in August to make up for not going in July. Oh yes, and we did get dolphins as we were returning to the dock.
