Dive report - West Side Tuesday 30 June 2009

Floats had excellent large fish life today with lots of barracuda hanging around.  We saw single barracuda and one nice sized school of about 20-30 individuals.  Big green and orange parrotfish were making a racket munching the corals and gorgeous angelfish - some huge - were weaving back and forth over the coral ledges.  You'll have to forgive us if some of the very cool things we saw on this dive don't make the report, you see, our minds are a little over-excited because on our safety stop we had HUMPBACK WHALES!  Nothing better than hanging at five meters and seeing these big guys give you the eyeball as they go past! Our PADI Open Water Course students are going to have a hard time topping that experience!
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: slight
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 16m

Central Station was a lot dirtier than the Floats but there was no current and no surge. Turtles, schools of threadfin pearl perch (these guys are so cool to watch), moray eels, goatfish, bannerfish, bright blue wrasse all hung out with us at various points along the site. A white tip reef shark was patrolling up into the shallows, then back down out in the sand and along the front edge; not sure if he was looking for food, just wandering or looking for a good place to nap! Several octopus were out and about walking boldly over the reef and one was even swimming along...now that is a very neat thing to watch!
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 5m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 16m