August 31, 2005_ The Calm Beneath the Storm

It is raining heavily in Cocos today. It is likely to rain all day long from the looks of it



Dive 17: Dos Amigos Pequenos

Despite the weather above, it is calm beneath the storm. As I descend into the depths, I penetrate a large school of jacks. Down at 80feet, there is no current, and we hang for the first 10 minutes, waiting. Tuna, the largest I’ve ever seen come by. Hammerheads, come by 1 or 2 at a time. I have yet to witness them actively being ‘cleaned’. Several large Galapagos sharks come by in close range. Black jacks and other large fish, marbled rays. We start a gentle drift to the other side of DAP, to the steep walled side. Less action on this side as we wash back and forth in the surge at 40 feet. Finally take a turn out into the blue - unfortunately, no action there either.



Dive 18: Dos Amigos Grande (still pouring rain)



On this dive, we pass through a large arch. Supposed, at the top of the arch there are barberfish swimming upside down because the think the ceiling of the arch is the floor. The arch was cold and dark and the top of the arch was way up at 40feet whilst we were diving at 80ft, so I did not see the barberfish. It was much nicer after exiting the arch. Many fish. Giant snapper. Some hammerheads and Galapagos sharks.



Dive 19: Dirty Rock

The giant schools of big eye jacks have partially dispersed into mating pairs. We see them swimming in pairs, the males turned to black and swimming with their silver female counterparts. Crazy down going current makes swimming very disorienting. The schools of snapper ( yellow snapper, Jordan’s snapper & blue and gold snapper are all swimming pointing upwards)



Skipped the ‘feeding frenzy’ night dive tonight. Have a headache. Too bad because there was real live feeding action tonight.