-- Spoilsport, Wednesday, January 1, 2003 --

Dive #1 - AIMS Bommie, Outer Great Barrier Reef (with Norm, Teri, and Mia)

Unfortunately, I do not have fond memories of my first dive at AIMS Bommie (AIMS stands for "Australian Institute of Marine Science,"-- where Sharron works -- and a "bommie" is a coral head). The current made the first ten minutes extremely difficult, and all of us burned through half of our air getting around the left side of the reef (in the photo above). I discovered immediately after entering the water that my lens was set to manual focus, rendering the camera nearly useless. Half-way through the dive, I noticed battery acid leaking out of one of my strobes. Both of my strobes had flooded! The strobes that I am using were part of the first batch produced, and are known to flood easily; I never sent them to have them replaced becaused the had worked without flooding in the past. Luckily, I have a spare strobe which seems to be working without any problems. I suppose one strobe is better than no strobes at all.

Dive #2 - AIMS Bommie, Outer Great Barrier Reef (with Mia)

Mia and I jumped in late for a short dive before lunch, which was quite enjoyable. It's always refreshing to dive without a camera. I spotted a fair sized cuttlefish (just over a foot long) which circled around, flashing colors at us. We also saw a hairy ghost pipefish, which Marie had marked with floating bottles. The one we spotted was tiny -- about an inch long.

[next - grouper gap]