We found Nemo! And Potato Cod! And MINKY WHALES! – Day 2 Aboard the Spirit of Freedom – Tuesday 23 June 2009

A nice sunset on the Coral Sea



A pretty blue giant clam



Daniel pointing to a purple giant clam (the was probably about 3.5-4 feet across)



Swimming with Mr. Potato Cod



On the bottom waiting for the Cod Feed



Lion Fish from the night dive



Turtle chomping on some coral



The edge of part of Ribbon Reef # 10


Ah, I am sitting on a slightly rocking Spirit of Freedom having had an absolutely fantastic day full of five dives, including my first night dive, and my first live aboard experience. Today was a great one – this is my attempt to relay the good stuff.

Dive 1 – 7 am – Cod Hole

Visibility is awesome!!! We got down to 29 or so meters (nearly 100 feet) and we could look up and see absolutely clear to the surface! It was phenomenal! We saw several potato cod and lots of pretty colored clams – not to mention that the coral was just beautiful we looked up and saw feet and feet of coral wall! We got some great clear pictures on this one.

Dive 2 – 10 am - Cod Hole - Cod Feed

Same dive site – but this time we did a Cod Feed where we all dove down and sat in the sand while they fed potato cod directly in front of each of us as the red bass with sharp long teeth swam around. After that we swam around and spotted some really nice bump-head parrot fish – that were huge – nearly as big as the potato cod.

Dive 3 – 1 pm – Two Towers

We swam around two big coral bominies (which is aborigine for underwater mountains) and saw all sorts of neat things – we saw two different green sea snakes (one kept following me around) and several giant clams, lots of pretty schools of fish, a turtle, another pair of clownfish in fluffy pink anemone and then just after we got out of the water – the minky whales showed up!! Some people were lucky enough to see them in the water – but according to conservation regulations, you cannot get in the water if you’re in 100 meters of them and once you’re in the water you’re not supposed to get within 30…but if they come to you, then you’re okay – so a few people got to see them about twenty feet away!!! We got to watch from the boat and saw them breaching the water 8 or 10 feet in front of us – it was really really awesome.

Dive 4 – 3:30 pm –

As we approached this dive site the tide was not yet in and a good bit of the coral was protruding through the water. By the time we hopped in the pool the tide had come in ten whole meters and the coral was back under the water. This was a pretty shallow dive site – but still lots to see. There were lots of details to notice – like clown fish burrowed anemone that’s tucked deep in between the finger coral, a huge map puffer fish, and lots of other neat things. We enjoyed looking at the smaller things on this site and spent a lot of time in the shallows enjoying the beautiful coral formations. Because it was so close to the surface, the sun shone in much more easily and the colors seemed more brilliant too.

Dive 5 – 6 pm – just after sunset.

The concept of a night dive is intimidating, but I ignored the reality of jumping into the ocean at night and went for it – it was really cool. After cracking cylume sticks that were attached to our tanks and each arming ourselves with torches (underwater flashlights), we set out and jumped in. As I let out all the air in my BC, I saw the last rays on sunset and sank into the water. What neat (and frightening) about a night dive is that you can only see what you light up with your torch…which could be the large fish that show up for dinner and hope you will show them the way to some smaller fish and make their lives a bit easier, or it could be a shark lurking in the distance, or a ray sliding out of your light and under a coral ledge. We saw a lion fish!!!, saw lots of little crabbies and crustaceans lurking in the coral crevices, and some smaller fishies hiding in the finger coral in fear of their lives. And then, as we were doing our safety stop and had 14-24 inch fish swarming all around us, freaking out whenever you shone the light on them, we realized that there were sharks lurking just outside of the freaking out mob of smaller fish that we were in the middle of…

After our fifth dive of the day I got a nice salt-free shower, ate a delicious dinner, enjoyed a non-seasick evening, and working on catching up on the blog. Again, something that will be posted later, but if I didn’t jot down dive notes every few dives I would never remember the highlights. When you’re under water nearly five hours a day it’s difficult to distinguish what happened which hour.
This is my first experience on a liveaboard and I must say – I’m loving it! The people are great, they’re from all over and all love to dive, all are on vacation, all are good natured and excited to share their stories – and the crew is fun loving and good humored. It’s been fun to share so many fishy sitings with Daniel and to kick back and enjoy the ride. Daniel is still maintaining his title as “Mr. Naked” that he earned on his last dive trip to Komodo – it refers to the fact that he, unlike anyone else on the boat, is comfortable diving without at wetsuit. Everyone is fascinated with this…

It is nearly nine o’clock and most decidedly time for bed! We were up at six to catch first breaky and dive – good night!