Thanks for the many great comments on part 1 si here is the followup to it. Monday we found ourselves at the Hilma Hooker, easy entry and we surface swam out to her and then down the bow line. vis was superb. lots of barracuda just off the line, then lots of tarpon in and around the wreck, also we later found out we dove her on the 21st anniversary of her sinking, so that was kinda cool. very easy wreck to love no need for a wreck reel here, just swim into any opening and you can see light from just about every possible spot in her. After about 20 minutes we came up the reef, and were followed by a few tarpon and a few Barracuda. The reef is fairly steep and it doesn't take long to come up and swim back in to the shore. after about 45 minutes be were back on shore pledging to return to her, which we did twice more throughout the week.

Our Second dive brought us to Tori's Reef. What a great place to dive so many varieties of fish so little battery power in the camera. We stayed right about 45' for the entire dive and that seemed to be a depth were you could see just about anything this reef had to offer.

After our second dive of the day we broke for lunch, I can't remember where we ate everyday so I will post another part at the end with our dining choices. But all of them turned out to be great choices.


After lunch we got on the boat and headed to Klein and Leanora's Reef. The reef was very steep and with a little current turned into a great one hour drift dive. This turned out to be our only boat dive but next time I will surely do a few more. I was scared away by some of the newbie divers onboard, I don't mind them, after all we were all newbies once ourselves. I just felt like I was being scrutinized, someone actually asked why I wear two computers and the divemaster answered that they din't need two that it was overkill. So I stated that when I do Northeast US dives in 5ft vis and 50' water at 150 ft it is unsafe to be without a completely redundant backup, he said that it was still overkill. So I guess it was the dive master that I was annoyed with not the newbie. Well enough of the rant onto another dive shall we?

We decided to dive at night today so off we went to Bari Reef, after walking down the pier ladder we noticed about 6 or 8 tarpon in the shallows. We decided to photo them on the way in so down to the reef and just as we hit it at 30ft or so we were treated to a green moray swimming by and park himself upon the reef, and shot about a dozen photos of him with his mouth wide open. Which by the way is how they breathe. We also got to see a couple of striped moray's that were very small, but they don't get much bigger than 2 or 3 feet anyway. with 1300 remaining we followed the pipe in and sure enough the tarpon were waiting it took a few minutes for them to get close to us but when they did the strobes they were a firing and what happens next completely annoys me my strobe goes dead after 5 pics. I forgot about the big guys waiting for us and killed it on the reef, but we still spent another 35 minutes watching them. After this dive it was straight to bed after all we had 4 more dives for tommorrow and with over 4 hours of bottom time from today to off gas it was a much needed rest. Stay tuned for the next installment titled "Part 3"

Great report so far, Chris! And I know what you mean about the DM. He obviously has not dove the NE. Next time take a pony bottle too. That'll get em talkin!

Great report - keep it coming! First Bonaire trip coming up early January - your info is quite helpful.

My two computers are waiting to go 2-12 October, and I'd have my reel and pony for the Hooker if I could justify the extra weight to travel with. Such a great wreck! If it makes you feel any better I ran into the same kind of arrogance- or is it ignorance- from a DM off Ft. Lauderdale when I showed up in February with what this NE wreck diver considers a bare minimum for offshore diving. A new diver looked at my dual computers, knife and shears, small light, safety sausage, and one other item and asked what all that gear was for. DM replied "overkill" with some additional muttering about nervous gear addicts. Then the current and surge really picked up during our dive, leaving 8 divers playing yo-yo while trying to hang on to the same area of the anchor line for a safety stop. (No hang bars or Carolina rigs for this boat.) There were a lot of comprehending looks when I deployed my Jon line. The curious new diver joined me in using that unnecessary bit of gear for a comfortable hang. Long live (reasonable)overkill.