8.24.08 - The "Copenhagen" and "Field Goal Reef"

Hello everyone.

Sunday the 24th finds the Video Dude along with Scuba Goddess Terri and "Hall of Famous" Joanie aboard Parrot Island Scuba's "Fish Food" heading out to do a couple of drift dives on the first reef. Terri and I are going to entertain Joanie by attempting to catch lobsters - yes, you heard correctly, I am going to make my first attempt at catching some "bugs". Captain Chris and Divemaster Kimmie are guiding the boat out to our first dive site on an ocean that looks like a sheet of glass under very sunny skies.

In no time, we reach the "Copenhagen" and the three of us jump in and begin our search for "bugs". Almost immediately I spot a large Green Moray hiding in the timbers of the wreck and later I find a Spotted Moray as well. Joanie - (ol' Eagle Eyes) - finds us some lobster right away and the fun begins. I let Terri try the first one, which she snares right away making it look way too easy. Now it's my turn with the tickle stick and net. Well, let's just say that I am really good with a tickle stick, but not so great encouraging the bugs into my net. For most of the morning, we switch to tag-teaming the bugs - I tickle them out and Terri snares them. We also saw lots of Spadefish, most of which could care less that we were around, a couple of Flamingo Tongues attached to a Gorgonian, as well as a tiny Nudibranch (maybe an inch long) crawling along the reef.

Dive #2 was on a reef called "Field Goal" which is a new mooring ball on the first reef set. The water was a little murky when we first jumped in, but near the bottom things cleared out and the search for bugs continues. We get a few more chances at them, including a shot at "Bugzilla", a huge lobster. We now know why he is so large, he was really smart! He evaded all our tactics at capture, and he even tried to stir up the sand so we couldn't see him. We ended up catching his neighbor though and one other one for a total of 4. I even caught another one by myself - yes, in the net! - but it was too small to keep and I put it back in it's hole. So, according to Joanie, we ended up 5 for 9 for the day. Towards the end of the dive we saw a small Golden Eel and we had a close encounter with a lone Squid who showed off his color changing skills, then joining a school of fish swimming by, changed colors to match the fish and disappeared into the blue.

It was a great day for getting back in the water after so many life-changing events had occurred to me in the past month. I got the catch of the day (and the lobsters were good too!!).

Always learning something new in Paradise,

The Video Dude