Today we have spent a fair bit of time in the water, 3.5 hours over lunch and 2.5 hrs tonight. Tonight's night dive was certainly value for money. In between doing the research (yes we were doing research not just looking around), we saw a plethora of animals that are normally difficult to find. On the way out to the first site we stumbled across a 2 metre nurse shark that was hunting amongst the coral outcrops, it quickly moved off from the lights and camera. The work that we were doing requires that our dive torches are turned off. It is only when there is no artificial light that you can see the light show that the reef puts on at night. Over the reef and floating in the water column are hundreds of microscopic animals that emit light, where ever you look there are tiny blinking white lights, that in it self made the dive worthwhile. After working in the shallows we returned to the habitat to refill our tanks, on the way back Ove came across a 20 cm long cuttlefish in the water column. After trying to ignore us for a minute or two, putting on an aggressive display and then attacking the camera, it disappeared into the darkness with one quick pulse. After the tank fill we proceed to the next site at 60 feet. Here we came across a small moray eel that just happened to have its burrow in the middle of the sponges we were looking at. After returning to Aquarius for another quick top up of the tanks we headed out to the last site at 85 feet. While trying to find samples amongst the scattered rocks at this depth I stumbled upon a Hawksbill Turtle asleep on the sandy bottom, it was at least 4.5 foot from nose to tail and looked to be extremely health. After trying to ignore us and our torches and return to sleep, it slowly lifted off from the bottom and gently swam away.

Cheers from Aquarius

Bill