16:39:00
Admin
Well being that I'm Scottish, I like a good bargain from time to time so when we got offered some cheap boat diving on the North side, it was hard to say no. As much as I like my shore diving here, it''s hard to resist throwing yourself off a perfectly good boat from time to time.
It's even better when the crew let you do what you want and stay down as long as you want, none of this "you come up when I tell you to" crap other operators enforce just for the sake of getting back to shore so they can skive off the rest of the day. We had our pick of any of the Northern sites (within reason/distance) so it was an easy choice when we jumped in on Babylon first.
Diving the towering pinnacles and sheer drop of the wall never gets boring here and the sponges and coral formations here just make everything that much more scenic.
Playing hide and seek with the snappers is always entertaining not to mention the massive shoals of triggerfish cruising along the top of the wall.
Given the depths involved did limit our bottom time however but we did get a couple of laps around the main pinnacles and swimthroughs before it was time to head back up topside for the half-time oranges and a bit of bullsh*t and banter back on the boat.
Dive number two saw us jump in on Black Rock reef which is my first time here and it looked to be quite a promising site with a lot of potential. As I had swapped over tot he macro lens, the hunt was on for the little gems.
Just for the record, they had some of the biggest lettuce leaf slugs here that I have ever seen so far, they certainly grow them big on this site!
There was a good selection of blennies and gobies to get some shots of along with the usual yellowline arrow crabs hiding out in the sponges.
There was also a great little juvnile orange sided goby which was busy trying to catch something. It was till I had a closer look that I relised it had caught and was busy munching on some sort of worm. Greedy little tyke.
We all had a great day out on the boat with a great crew, so I think we'll be back there again a time or two. For this weekend, it'll be back to shore diving as usual. Safe diving!
It's even better when the crew let you do what you want and stay down as long as you want, none of this "you come up when I tell you to" crap other operators enforce just for the sake of getting back to shore so they can skive off the rest of the day. We had our pick of any of the Northern sites (within reason/distance) so it was an easy choice when we jumped in on Babylon first.
Diving the towering pinnacles and sheer drop of the wall never gets boring here and the sponges and coral formations here just make everything that much more scenic.
Playing hide and seek with the snappers is always entertaining not to mention the massive shoals of triggerfish cruising along the top of the wall.
Given the depths involved did limit our bottom time however but we did get a couple of laps around the main pinnacles and swimthroughs before it was time to head back up topside for the half-time oranges and a bit of bullsh*t and banter back on the boat.
Dive number two saw us jump in on Black Rock reef which is my first time here and it looked to be quite a promising site with a lot of potential. As I had swapped over tot he macro lens, the hunt was on for the little gems.
Just for the record, they had some of the biggest lettuce leaf slugs here that I have ever seen so far, they certainly grow them big on this site!
There was a good selection of blennies and gobies to get some shots of along with the usual yellowline arrow crabs hiding out in the sponges.
There was also a great little juvnile orange sided goby which was busy trying to catch something. It was till I had a closer look that I relised it had caught and was busy munching on some sort of worm. Greedy little tyke.
We all had a great day out on the boat with a great crew, so I think we'll be back there again a time or two. For this weekend, it'll be back to shore diving as usual. Safe diving!
