Hi all!
I'm home again and catching up on the site, and here's my Trip Report:
Many of us arrived early Sat. am, with the rest straggling in Sat & Sun. Most rooms were not ready yet, so bags were left in the lobby area & we went through the dive orientation 9:30-ish. Paid our Marine Park fees, got our weights, and many jumped in for our checkout dive. Water temps were a steady 81 degrees all week by my computer, so I wore my dive skin & my 3mm shorty and was comfortable. Water was cool enough to wake me up after the redeye flight, for sure!
I went back out on the house reef (Calabas Reef) again after lunch with Clint (my dive buddy for the week), so he could get his checkout dive done. After that, my room was ready so I got settled in and headed for Club Chez Neal with my duty-free contribution.
The majority of us were on one boat, the Sunshine, all week. Sometimes divers would pack into their rental trucks and go shore diving elsewhere, which freed up some space on the boat for Bill R. and his students to join us. We had quite a few BIG camera rigs and a number of point & shoot cameras on the trip, so I expect plenty of pics to be posted soon! I'll look at mine and get some posted, hopefully today if the Gallery has been set up. Camera space was at a premium on the boat, and they added a second fresh water tub to the boat after the first day. After 3 boat dives each day, I did another dive on the house reef, so I spent plenty of time underwater. The boat gave us 60 minute bottom times all week, and didn't gripe if we went a bit over that.
The critters were varied and plentiful, and in all stages of maturity. When I scanned my pics, I noticed that I had 3 decent shots of the same fish, in juvenile, teenage & adult stages.
The short list of critters I got shots of: french, gray & queen angels, spotted trunkfish, cowfish, anemones, spotted drums, ghost filefish, trumpet fish, great barracuda, scorpion fish, multiple species of eels, tarpon, seahorses, arrow crabs, bearded clams, turtles, peacock flounders, frog fish, multiple varieties of parrot fish, banded butterfly fish, octopus, sergeant majors everywhere, fairy basslets, damselfish galore, slipper lobster cleaner shrimp and banded coral fish, hard & soft corals & gorgonians. I saw some bleaching of the coral, but not too bad. It's good to see both staghorn & elkhorn corals coming back.
The two dive op staff on our boat took turns leading dives, and both need to learn not to drag stuff out into the open just for us to see. Unfortunately, they all know Americans tip so they try to give us what we came to see however they can.
There was a cruise ship in port almost every day we were there, so town was busier than I've ever seen it. Our resort was just south of the Town Pier area, so some of those monster ships seemed to loom over everything. Fortunately, the ships all left in the late afternoon, so they were gone by the time we went to town for a meal.
The pier restaurant - can't remember the name, is now forever on my "don't go" list. The service was nearly non-existant -- I had to flag someone down and ask if we could get another beer while we waited - and waited - and waited for our meals to arrive. There were very few customers so not very busy, but they basically ignored us after taking our order. About an hour & 15 minutes later, we left. I had an ice cream cone for dinner that night. YUM!
Many hung out after the dive day at Club Chez Neal. Neal & Gary, thank you for opening up your patios and mini-fridges for the cause. Much discussion, laughter, music, and general getting to know each other better took place, along with a little dancing by a few. Next time, everybody hit duty-free and bring a contribution! I know for a fact that a few people kept the place stocked, and they deserve HUGE thanks.
The costume contest was on Thursday night after the group dinner, and as usual the laughter could be heard far & wide. The theme was "professions", and the imaginations & creativity was great. I'm sure pics will be posted. I came as a professional wrestler with the persona of "Seahorse Wrangler". I knew I could get more use out of that old wrestling singlet I had!
The cape, however, was new.
Quite a few stayed an extra night, so if anything exciting happened on Saturday they'll have to add to the report.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable week. I got to catch up with some old friends, and I made some new ones, and oh yeah, the DIVING was easy & memorable. It's why I go back year after year.