Snowblind

The viz was shockingly bad today (as you can see from the pics) but undeterred, we made a bid for the main wall and were instantly greeted by huge shoals of jacks, snappers, sweetlips and groupers. The snappers were particularly frisky today with constant nudges and bumps and continuously wanting attention. It's like having a wife!!

Demanding constant attention......and the snapper!

The current wasn't too bad at all despite a 9 knot NE blowing a the surface and a change in tide so it was nice just to hang out in the blue and admire the scenery for a bit.

There a were a few nice little stingrays with escort mooching around in the sand as we headed back in to shore, unfortunately there were proving to be a little camera shy today. Obviously don't like to be watched whilst they eat.......

We had a short wait whilst the sun melted over the horizon and crowds of tourists dispersed before we got back in to see what we could see. Almost straight away Jill caught sight of nice big eagle ray cruising over the hardpan at about 5 metres.

As soon as we illuminated it, it done a nice little vertical loop for us and swam off into the depths. No shots I'm afraid, too dark, crap viz and macro lens just aren't conducive to good photos.

There were some extremely nice nudis out tonight with a frightening number of fringe backs all precariously perched on coral and algae. Maybe they were chased up there by sea dogs or something........

"How did I get up here?"

Still, despite the acrobatic antics of the nudis, there were a few yellow spotted rays cruising around for a midnight snack before bed time whilst the peacock flounders where content to park their flat backsides and watch the reef go by.

Yellow spotted ray needs food, badly

"What, you want me to move around for the camera? No"

Oh, and did I mention fringebacks doing a balancing trick? The lettuce leaf slugs were in on the act as well. There must definitely be something in the water..........

"alley-oop!"

And to round off the evenings festivities, we had an unexpected guest in the shampe of a stone fish parked right underneath the jetty, just happy to sit there and mind it's own business. It was probably trying to figure out why all the nudis were so afraid of being on the ground............

Pondering the innate abilities of climbing nudibranchs