I Found Nemo!!!

I went out on my second dive trip last weekend on board the White Manta. Much smaller and cheaper than the Black Manta. All on my own too. I was just keen to get back into the water to get my bouyancy right and enjoy the underwater scenery rather than stressing about doing skills on a course.

I'd rung the owner in advance to make sure he sorted someone out to look after me as I had just got certified and was going on board on m own. As the groups were pretty much sorted, I got the other dive instructor, C, all to myself so I pretty much got a one-to-one which was an added bonus.

I did a total of 6 dives, including one night dive. The visibility was amazing, about 15m and the marine life was brilliant. Loads of different fishes, corals, etc. Although half the time I didn't know what I was looking at. It was a tough job trying to memorise what you saw so that you could look it up later. I couldn't take any pics as I haven't got an underwater camera case just yet. But I've got pics of the fishes I saw from the internet.

Of course, the danger of not know what you're looking at is that you don't know whether the fish is aggressive or not. As my luck would have it, I was looking at this nice little fishy which turned out to be a nesting Titan Triggerfish and next thing I knew, the little fucker had it's fangs on my legs! I'm glad I bought a long wetsuit otherwise it would've had a chunk off my leg. What I didn't know was C had spotted the fish earlier, turned away from it and it was attacking the back of C's head!!

After that little incident every big-ish fish I saw, I tend to distant myself away from it. I saw this beautiful big angelfish and I found myself quickly swimming away when I got to it's sightline. Although what is a fish's sightline? They've got eyes on their sides, not the front like humans have.

Saw my first blue spotted ribbon tail ray. It was gliding along the bottom beautifully. On our way back, there was a school of dolphins swimming along some 30m away from out boat. I LOVE dolphins!! I think I'm definitely going to get a tattoo of dolphins on my lower back. It's gotta be done!!

Saw a cuttlefish. Ugly littl f**kers.

A giant baracuda. The one I saw was only about a metre long. And then I saw around a school of baracudas. It was beautiful!

Yellow snapper

Yellow mask angelfish

Yellow boxfish... hmm, I'm seeing a lot of yellow fishes

Scribbled filefish

Saw a pair of scorpion fish on the rocks

I found Nemo!! Well, more than one, they were so cute!

Grumpy old Napoleon Wrasse

Cute Moorish Idol

Map Pufferfish

Longfin Spadefish, aka Batfish

Checkboard snapper

Beautiful blue spotted ribbon tail ray

Funny little black spotted pufferfish. I was staring at it for ages hiding in the rocks

The cheeky little fucker who bit me, the Titan Triggerfish

My favourite, dolphins

Sargeant Major Scissortail

I wanna get back out there with the fishes. It was a bit sad on the way back. I've had such a superb weekend and for once, I thought I might actually just give up working in the construction industry and take up diving full time. There's a whole new world down there and you just float around enjoying the scenery. Plus, meeting all sorts of different people was always a bonus.

I've planned to go back out in the sea in a month's time. My mates were impressed with what I was telling them, particularly being bitten by a fish! I think I'm gonna be rounding up a troop of 5 or 6 in about 4 weeks. Titan Triggerfish, I ain't afraid of you. I'm gonna have my gang sort you out next time.... until you start biting.... yikes!