Two Queens: A queen angelfish and a queen parrotfish (juvenile) at East Bank.

However, the lure of hammerhead sharks was too strong, and I jumped at the chance to make the trip, disregarding the conditions.  The trip had its good moments and its bad moments, but mostly I enjoyed the diving and the sights.

The worst part of the experience was definitely at East Bank late on the first day.   When I did the check dive, the current was blowing so hard that I never let go of the mooring line.  Before I started the dive, I noticed that the port side down line was hanging at a 30-degree angle due to the current pushing on it--and there was a 40-pound weight on the bottom of the line!  Taking this as a sign, I entered the water from the forward gate, near the bow, and still almost couldn't swim the 15 feet to the mooring line.  Once I reached the mooring line, I held on for dear life until the other divemaster threw me the side line, and I started my dive.

At 35 feet, I stopped and tied the side line to the morring line, and proceeded to the bottom for a temperature, visibility, and current check.  The current slacked a little near the bottom, but it was blazing between 55 feet and the surface.  I kept a death-grip on the mooring line, because I knew I'd never make it back to the boat otherwise.  I let go only at the very bottom, and then I swam only 20 feet from the mooring line before turning tail.  I followed the mooring line all the way up to the side line, and then followed the side line all the way back to the boat.  

Back on the boat, it was time to brief the divers.  Literally, I begged them not to do the dive.  I told them about the current (2+ knots down to 55 feet), the poor visibility (30 feet, max, which is awful for the Gardens), and the water temperature (69 F).  I pleaded with all newer divers to stay out of the water.   I begged anyone intent on making the dive not to let go of the mooring line.   I advised them that if they let go of the mooring line, they shouldn't go more than 10 or 20 feet from it.

Despite the gloom-and-doom picture, 10 of the 30+ passengers decided to make the dive anyway.

I ended up having to go get 5 of them in the chase boat afterwards.

Moral of the story: when your divemaster is scared, you should be, too!

One of the interesting coral formations at East Bank.


Barracuda drift in the current at West Bank.


Our friendly queen parrotfish poses again.

The Fling prepares to tie up to an oil rig for the rig dive.

The problem was: in the 10 minutes it took me to bring the first pair back to the boat and radio the Spree, the other group of 3 had disappeared from sight.  The lookouts on the Fling's sun deck could see them, but the divers had drifted so far from the Fling (roughly half a mile is my estimate) that I couldn't see the observer's hand signals for direction.  Worse still, the waves were high enough that they disappeared into the troughs.  None of the divers had a safety sausage, and none of them remembered the  'wave-a-fin-over-your-head' trick, despite my mentioning it during the trip briefing. Oh well.

There are several morals to this story.  First (a repeat, I know, but it's worth repeating): when your divemaster is scared, you should be, too! Second: never dive in the open ocean without a safety sasusage or some sort of tall signaling device.  When you're in the troughs, the boats can't see you.

One of the larger sponges at the Gardens.


More cool coral formations.

A hammerhead in midwater at West Bank.

Hammerhead sharks migrate through the area in February and March.  There's a very good chance of seeing them on the spring trips.  Of course, there's an even better chance that your trip will get cancelled due to bad weather, but that's a different story.   This trip did not disappoint, with plenty of sharks on at least a couple of dives.   I'll leave the details for the dive log.

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