This one is for you Glenn.
Guess what we saw?

One of those cute little lobsters with the bullseye pattern on his shell. We knew what to look for and managed to see two during the dive.

Anyway back to the dive log...
Jake was giving our friends their night dive portion of their advanced open water cert. So I went in as well to complete a specialty in night diving. (They had to do night time navigation and I got to sit in the dark for 3 minutes. Not that it was really very dark.)

So 4 of us entered the water about 10:15-10:30pm. The moon was at about half full, street lights, music drifting over from Karel's Beach bar, nice gentle lapping waves.

We headed straight for the piling where they had seen two frogfish during their morning Touch the Sea dive with Dee. There they were - big yellow spotted and a smaller dark green/brown one beside it. Found a light yellow octopus in a tube sponge. And of course, admired the glorious orange cup coral that comes out at night.

Jake and I explored the shallow sand flats while the other two were doing their navigation. Lots of juvenile fish out and about. One small 1.5 foot barracude, some spotted moreys hiding, sleeping spotted goat fish.

I did notice while the lights were out the sparkles of bioluminesence that diver movements and especially fins kick up. Very festive.

There seemed to be lots of Spotted Drums and a pair of Highhat (drums) as well. Lots of crabs, schools of bogas, tiny glasseye snappers, butterflyfish, cardinal fish everywhere out in the open, flamefish, tiny squirrelfish, a spotted scorpionfish, even a small reef squid. The soapfish were out and about instead of the lying down dead postion of the daytime.

Fish that were noticeable missing compared to the daylight hours are the wrasses and the chromis. The cowfish and trunkfish were mostly bedded down for the night in cracks and crevices.

After 83 minutes underwater, we called it a night. My fingers had gotten quite frosty and the warm rinse water was very welcome. Although after almost an hour and a half the quality of the kareoki singing had gone way down hill at Karel's.

Sounds beautiful, Linda. I loved the one night dive I did off Klein Bonaire. Went a little away from the flashlight crowd, closer to the deep so I could play with the sparkley bioluminesence without hitting any coral. Made myself into an underwater tornedo, then drifted in the midst of it. That's probably the memory I'll hold closest of our week there ... different but similar to a trip to Egypt when I got to walk through Karnak Temple w/out the crowds at night.

Linda,
I love your descriptions of your dives. I just drift away and pretend I am there. thanks