12.20.08 - "The Ant Beds" and "Abbey Too Reef"

Hello everyone.

Saturday, December 20th finds the Video Dude and Scuba Goddess Terri once again aboard ScubaTyme for more reef diving. Once again Enzo, Captain Steve and DM Amanda welcomed us aboard and got us situated. We nearly had the whole boat to ourselves as there were only 8 divers on a boat that holds 18, so it was very comfortable with lots of room to "spread out".

After getting our gear set up and listening to Captain Steve's boat briefing, we are underway to our first dive site - a reef called "The Ant Beds". This is the first time I have ever been on this reef, and the topography was very different than the rest of the reefs down here. Terri and I were going to look for lobster and do some exploring since this was a new reef to us. We saw a couple of Spotted Morays, a big Green Moray, lots of schools of Grunts, Yellowtails, Blue Chromis and more. We also managed to catch 2 Lobsters. It was a nice easy drift with hardly any current, visibility was about 30ft and the water temp was around 73 degrees.

Dive #2 was on an old favorite - "Abbey Too Reef". This time Terri and I are joined by our friend Joe Marino - an amazing underwater photographer - to look for more Lobster and basically take a nice slow drift along the reef. We saw another large Spotted Eel, more schools of Grunts, Porkfish, and Chromis, and we caught another 2 Lobster. Another nice easy drift dive with very little current, visibility around 30ft and the water temp was around 73 degrees again.

Overall a nice morning of diving. Terri said "it was probably one of my favorite days of diving ever!". So there you have it. Since I am to be traveling for the rest of the year, today was most likely the last dive of 2008. Don't worry, I'll be back at it starting January 1 - dive is already booked! - so the blogs will continue! Hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Still Diving in Paradise (even in winter!),

The Video Dude