April 19 - Dive No. 42 Max Depth: 66' - Dive Time: 47 min
Log: Hold on! Felt like flying! We hooked onto the reef at the edge of the plateau and sat there on the edge of our tethers watching 15-20 sharks circle around. The current was strong enough that you couldn't fin and make forward progress. You could hear it (the current), and it pulled the skin of my face back -- like sky diving! Unfortunately, my camera and strobe were like a big acrylic sail in the current. The sharks seemed to have no problem with hovering in the current (unlike some of the fish -- they let us get close because they were fighting to stay in one place). At one point the chunk of dead coral holding Matt broke, but I caught his reef hook and pulled him back down. The same thing happened to Kenny, but I couldn't grab his hook and he went flying upwards (and backwards) until he could deflate his BC and fin back down. Saw a school of huge barracuda. Fantastic dive! Probably the best one so far.
Earlier in the week, Francis, Paulo, and their family had been caught in a
vicious down-current at Blue Corner. Apparently, their exhaled bubbles went
down, which is almost unheard of. It caused a fair bit of disorientation.
Mom was sucked down past 100' in depth -- one of her boys helped her get out
of it. To get to safety, all of them inflated their BCs and finned upwards madly.
Sounds scary! It was disorienting, even for us, to be out in the blue at Blue
Corner. During the first ten minutes of the dive, we had to swim away from the
reef to avoid the crazy current whipping over the plateau. We were out in the
blue surrounded by sharks...
[next - big drop off (2)]
) sharks, hanging like a squadron of airplanes... |
) hooked onto the plateau |
) |
) kenny, the kite |
) clownfish and carpet anemone, near where i was hooked onto |
) |
) kenny - hooking on |
) self-portrait |
) school of jacks |
) lots of fish! |
) big school of barracuda |