Triggerfish, Lionfish and Beers, Oh my!!

Greetings dear reader to the next post. Much of what has been best has been underwater where this camera doesn't go. I may try to get some shots from the boat but even it is often a fairly wet experience.

Twice daily snorkeling on various reefs has been astoundingly beautiful. More varieties of soft and hard corals than I have ever had hair on my head. Riotous colors from jet black fans to purple swaths to red and yellow eruptions. The size and shape variety is more than impressive. Fan corals (like a sillouhetted oak tree branches) eight feet across, mushroom shaped corals over 10 feet, all filled in with finer varieties down to matchbox sized.

Then there are the creatures. Even for us snorkelers the non-threatening 5 foot blacktip sharks are on every venture, reef fish in almost every color and pattern imaginable so that even the "Nemo" orange and white are the more mundane. Try googling clown triggerfish or spotted sweet lips (no relation) for examples. The emperor angelfish is just a wannabe if you ask any of the predators.

One excursion brought us to a reef manta (12-15 foot span) though the divers got closer, even underneath them. A future trip should take us to the larger oceanic mantas, though I might need to premedicate with some Valium.

And then there are the occasional Hawksbill turtles cruising open blue at 10-30 feet deep like sages of the sea.

Overall no regrets from us with sticking with the simpler snorkelling. While the divers see more, we still see too much to take in. But we did note that the punishment here for misbehaving divers is to be restricted to snorkelling.

And for the next post, description of the resort itself. Barring disease outbreak or a tsunami, it will be happy one. Meanwhile, a few pics.Read more