August 28, 2005- Rock climbing on the Ocean Floor

Woke up scratching itchy bumps all over my arms neck and face. Must be the damn jelly larvae again. The seas are rougher this side of Cocos. We are on the northwestern coastline.

Dive 5: Dirty Rock

We went to Dirty Rock first- a rocky outcrop west off the coastline of Cocos. Gigantic schools of jacks! Absolutely gorgeous! Could see them on initial descent. Thousands of silvery medium sized fish just clustered along the edge of dirty rock. Spent first half of dive just playing in the schools. Then, unexpectedly, the current suddenly picked up. Just as Cristiano signaled for me to move in closer to the rocks, I got swept up & back and away from the group. Managed to grab on to a coral head- drained my BC of air and hung on for dear life- I think I went from 70 feet to 45 feet in a matter of seconds. Cristiano had to come and rescue me and we basically followed the current around to the other side of Dirty Rock. On this side of Dirty Rock, we encountered a spotted eagle ray feeding. It swam around with its mouth agape-quite an amusing sight! Also spotted some small to medium morays, including a very beautiful emerald green one.



One of the girls Fuensanta, on our dive team got an ear infection and she has stopped diving since dive 5. Poor thing. To come all this way and to have to sit out must really suck!



Dive 6: Punta Maria

(The gold team did not make this dive site earlier this AM because the currents where to strong.)

VERY strong currents here. We emptied out our BCs & followed a mooring line down to the ocean floor at about 90 feet, pulling ourselves down against tremendous current. It took me 5 minutes of dive time and 500 psi of nitrox just to make it down. Could not see anything but blue for the first 4 minutes- it seemed like it was never going to end. When we got to the bottom we hid in the rocks till Cristiano descended and he lead us over the rocks to an overhanging cliff at about 100 feet. I scrambled over the rocks once again against tremendous current, pulling myself hand over hand, scrapping everything against the rocks. ( My Gekko computer has the scratches to show for it) When we reached the cliff edge, it was like watching a big 3D IMAX movie, watching the multitude of fish, turtle and a pack of 5 hammerheads cruise by us. The current was so strong, I feared my mask and regulator would be washed right off my face. There was no chance of swimming into the blue in this dive. I started making my way back as I was starting to run low on no deco time & despite having still 1200 psi of air, I had a feeling I was going to need quite a lot of it to get back. So back up over the rocks, this time with my fins blowing up against my butt . I was quite fearful that I might stick my hands or knees right into the mouth of a white tip, as I had noted quite a few hiding under the rocks when I first descended.- luckily this did not happened. And then back up that endless mooring line. Sure enough, by the time I filled my BC at the choppy surface and got back on the pang, I had drawn my last breath and no more would come. The spg gauge read ‘0’! Apparently, the currents were so strong that the hammerhead we saw were also having trouble getting into proper position for cleaning!



We took a short exploratory boat cruise along the coastline on our way back to USH. Saw the nesting boobies. Crab on the shoreline. Explored a sea cave.



Dive 7: Viking rock

60-90 ft

Not too much big action on this dive- 1 hammerhead sighted, 1 Galapagos shark, few tuna in the distance. The coral heads here were actually half way decent. Schools of fish. Spent more time looking in rocks and at the smaller fish. Crevices filled with lobster. In one elongated crevice, there were 6 white tip sharks resting side by side. Loved the purple and yellow puffer with white spots. Spent some time playing hide and seek with a flounder. First he’d have blue spots and when he landed on a rock, he would have green spots in order to camouflage itself. I would go bother it and it would have to leave again to find yet another camouflage rock. Kept expecting a big current to come & wash me away at anytime as we circled this rock but luckily, that never happened.



Dive 8: Night dive in Chatham Bay coral garden

50ft, 43minutes.

Spent time playing with the various puffers- they can’t swim very fast so you can get really close to them and look them eye to eye. The puffers here are really pretty and very cute. One type is a bright orange- yellow, another is brown with white polka dots ( guineafowl puffer), another is the yahoo purple /yellow with white dots ( pacific boxfish). There were many lobster out and many sea cucumbers in beautiful colorations. Even the cucumbers were active and you could see them slowly moving along grazing. The coral reef was surprisingly colorful in the night lights- brilliant reds & yellows. Pink sea fan. Play with a mini flounder but lost him in the sand when I tried to get Mike’s attention to come and see. The fish colors are so much more brilliant under our dive lights. All in all, just some low stress frolicking – too bad it’s always cold at night.