Saturday Day 8

Surprisingly, Stephanie and I were ready to go around 8am.  Rest of our crew, not so much.  So I told Stephanie to take the helm, put the boat in gear to hold us with the stern line and removed all the lines (stern last) and jumped aboard having Steph put us into reverse at that time.  I had her back us out (first time) and she did fine with a little coaching.

We knew we wanted to try to get 2 dives in today.  So our first thought was Cow’s mouth.  We had a great dive with Evan (sail2wind) and Greg here our last trip.  Unfortunately there was a decent north swell so it didn’t look good – very rough in fact!  So we figured we’d try the chimney thinking it might be a bit more protected.  Under other circumstances, it would have been, but the direction the swells we’re from were hitting it just right.  So, we bailed on that as well.  I decided the safest bet would be to just head towards Peter.  There were sites there we could dive or we could simply head to the Indian’s and Rainbow Canyon’s.  After reviewing the guide book, we opted for the latter and got to the Indian’s around 1pm.  We did our dive while the rest of our crew snorkeled.  After the dive we moved and did the same at Rainbow Canyon.  Both dives we’re great.  We saw Spotted drums and High Hats on both of them – this just seemed to be a trip we’re we saw them all the time.  Very unusual!  Visibility at Rainbow Canyon’s weren’t great, but once in, I was looking down and looked up and was startled by a large creature.  A spotted eagle ray was swimming by 5 feet right in front of my.  I aimed the camera at him and saw it was off, so I powered it up, hit record and still managed to get a great shot of it swimming by!

After the dives, we headed to the moorings outside the Bight by the Caves.  I told the crew about the caves and that we could dinghy over to see them as they’ve never seen them.  So once settled we got our gear ready and we’re headed over.  As we left the boat, I decided I wouldn’t take the camera and told Steph that we’d probably see something cool now.  We’ll, I was right!  I like to think if I had the camera, that we wouldn’t have seen it, but I’m not leaving it behind again!!  Once there we heard a group in the water mention an octopus.  So we swam that way and looked for a bit until I finally saw it.  I dove down to get a closer look and he moved.  For the next 15-20 minutes, we swam about watching him move all around and even swim which was very cool.  It’s just too bad we got no pictures or video of it – it was certainly one of the snorkel highlights this trip!

Rainbow Canyon dive site

After our snorkel, we headed back to the boat where we just relaxed, had some drinks and chatted with each other.  Had some snacks too – no real dinner or even lunch today, just lots of snacks, but that seemed to be enough and we all called it an early night around 9:30/10pm.

Relaxing in the forward cockpit (aka front porch).  This was a great place to relax at night!