About Last Night

Last night was a long one, and potentially the least pleasant double date I've ever been on. The boat started getting extremely rocky around 9 pm, just as we were trying to go sleep. It got to Isabel and we spent the next three hours at the back of the boat as she was seasick. One consolation was that she was not the only one, there was another girl, Bew, who had it just as bad. He boyfriend Carl was out there with her, thus a double date. Also, Estelle, one of the hostesses (crew member) was out there too. She was a saint for putting up with them. Anyway, that's enough said about that.
Let's talk about diving. There were five planned dives today, which is a lot for those who don't know. Isabel took a miss on the first one, as did Bew. Rins the trip director did wouldn't even entertain the idea of them going on that dive. As was to be expected, I didn't really get enough sleep last night, but a pretty effective way to wake up is to jump into the ocean with a bunch of weight on your back. Sink or swim takes a different, and more confusing meaning. It should be sink or maintain buoyancy...
That dive we saw a few little black tip reef sharks, but nothing too outlandish. Sharks are cool though

Sharks are not scary underwater. They do their thing, you do yours, and no one gets upset
In the words of Shark Hulk, you wont like me when I'm angry

Some idiot swimming around with his reg out

Honestly, I can even remember much of the next dive. Isabel was back and the entire group had to go up before the divemaster and I due to air concerns. We saw a few more sharks once everyone was gone, but yeah, it was mainly the usual suspects. This does mark two dives in a row that there have been sharks but Isabel didn't see them. One day she'll see a shark. 

Third dive had a massive barracuda and some reef fish and a lionfish.

They're not evil in the Pacific, but if you see them in the Atlantic, kill them. Or get someone
who knows what they're doing to kill them as they're extremely venomous. Then you can fry
the meat and they're quite tasty. See more in my cooking blog speargun sushi

The fourth dive, finally something that can be exciting to explain to others. We were checking out a site with a lot of caves, which I hate because it's claustrophobic and terrifying, but I'm too self concious to ever admit that. I can write it here safely because no one actually reads the words. I whacked my head on the first, my tank on the second and just didn't go into the other ones. I swam over the caves and followed the bubbles. So the group we've been traveling with a fair amount I will refer to as team bro. There are two Kiwis who I'd put in their late twenties, Tom and Andrew. I'm betting they were partiers in college, but not have settled into their careers and while they like to have fun, have nothing to prove. Then there is also Bobby, who is a American doing a semester abroad in Australia. He plays lacrosse...enough said. He's adorable in an I-think-I'm-very-cool-but-come-off-as-an-eight-year-old kind of way. He learned how to dive last week, so he's a bit inexperienced, but someone gave him a GoPro. This means rather than trying to improve his skills he tries to get pictures of everything. It's a bit irritating, but after a few dives you figure out just to give him a wide berth. The last group members are me, diver extraordinaire (unbiased opinion of course), and Isabel, who is awesome and great and don't hurt me. So the other three guys guzzle down air, probably a bit due to being a little comfortable underwater and probably due to being larger me. So they got sent up and then AJ (leader of that dive) brought us over to some anemone fish.

This would have been much more romantic Isabel hadn't been floating just above my shoulder

The reason the fish were completely fearless is that they were protecting their eggs, so pretty much we harassed them and made faces at them until Isabel ran low on air.

Sushi with roe for dinner anyone?

Then AJ and I swam around for a while, saw a giant Wrasse and then called it a dive. We each had about 50 bar left, not bad for an hour underwater.
The last dive was a night dive that took place in the same site as where we we're pissing off the anemone fish. The site was named Admiralty because there was a large, old school anchor hanging out in a cave. Rins asked us if we knew how it got there, because he didn't. Big heavy anchor, with no easy way for it to have gotten there. We'll never know

Anchor

The highlight of the night dive were two fold. Firstly we saw flashlight fish. They're pretty cool. Secondly I found a black and white banded eel that looked a lot like a seasnake (it wasn't). So I'm having my flashlight wildly to get the attention of a nearby group, but they had seen something and were doing the exact same thing. I swam close to see what they found. It could have been the twin to my eel. They found the exact same thing at the exact same time and we all wanted to show each other something they'd found by themselves...typical.
We finished the dive and then it was bed time. The journey will be much less rocky tonight, so that's a relief. Hopefully I'll get more than 5 hours of sleep.
Anyway, here's a picture of the Spirit of Freedom for fun

Morning Chorus...and DIVING

Today marks our first full day of adventure in Tobago. We did much more than sit on planes! We sat on boats! So my dear brother and I crashed pretty early yesterday because we were whipped from all the travel. I woke up somewhere around 5:30 am and was able to hear the dawn chorus starting. This is a birding term for all the birds getting up in the morning and making a shitton of noise.

5:58 AM, totally worth it

Being the curious lad I am, I got up to investigate who was around. Our main culprit was the bananaquit. No I did not make up that word. They're a tiny honey/fruit eating bird with no shame or fear of humans. They are colorful and very loud

What are you doing Bananaquit? That's a humming bird feeder! You're not even using it correctly!

So I saw plenty of those and much fun was had by me while wandering around. I wont list all the birds I found because most of you are relatively sane and don't want to hear about them. I also found a mammal (other than stray cats and dogs) an agouti! it's a nut/fruit eating South American rodent. I was excited about it ok. Jeeze, stop being so judgmental  Eventually I got my brother wake up (14 minutes before we needed to get to the dive shop), and we went to the dive shop. Then we went diving. Jonah nearly hit me I so was vocally excited. He found me tiresome...

Diving is the best. it is so much fun. we saw tons of fish. damselfish, angelfish, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, a scorpionfish, and that was the first, weaker dive. The second one was even more exciting. We also had company in the form of four very new divers...they were not great with the not crashing into people thing, but one found a green moray so i forgive him. We persevered nonetheless and it was a great dive. We also saw giant spiny lobsters, a massive turtle with exactly 13 inner plates (if you didn't read the Australia blog, i mentioned all turtles and tortoises have 13 inner plates). I also thought I saw an octopus...but realized that either it was an amputated and aware tentacle, or it was a worm. It was a bearded fireworm. For those wondering, it looks like an octopus tentacle. Later on we actually did see an octopus. It was amazingly camouflaged, but once you saw it, it became clear. Still it attempted to maintain the facade of being invisible. It kept opening an eye to check on us. I imagined it's inner monologue going something like "they can't see me, no they cannont. now piss off....are they still there...yes. DAMN close eye fast...but they can't see me..." for about two minutes. Great start to the day, and got right back into diving, not too rusty. the afternoon adventures forthcoming with more pictures and maybe a video

Longest Post Ever, Diving Abridged

Seriously this is the short version of my diving Day 1: I got up around 5:30 or half five as they say here. I was the first picked up in our van. Our driver was named Rocky, a German? woman, at least she taught the course in German. They brought us to the dive shop and had people check their bags get gear, etc. then we got on a boat. We eventually got on to the boat, then we were introduced to the crew and watched a video on safety. I was trying to play the game Spot the Aussie. It was very difficult, the largest group was of British decent, with one guy who sounded exactly like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit. There was also a Dutch contingent, and a Swiss family. The ride out to the first site was about three hours. We had a briefing about it and then hopped in. Five of us elected to not go with a leader. We saw sharks, and tons of fish, but sharks. Found Nemo on the second dive, a ray on the third dive, and then there was the night dive. Again five people elected to not go with a leader. They let me lead for some reason...saw a shark and moray right off the bat...then I kind of went over the reef than around it......whoops. People were a little annoyed. Throughout the day I felt progressively worse. The first dive had killed my ears a bit, and by the end I was sure I would pop and eardrum and not be able to fly home. Early bedtime due to exhaustion of four dives in a day, about twice that of a normal dive day Day 2: Early wake up, but I felt miraculously healed from the sleep. There was something absurd and fantastic on every dive, but I think the highlight would be swimming with a turtle. It was very large and essentially just ignored me as I swam with it for a minute or two. Another cool thing was the night dive. We were looking for this giant turtle, which we did not find. At one point I kicked the sand, and looked down to see a thin eel burying itself in the ground. I later found out it was, appropriately for Australia, called the convict eel. I so saw a group of razorfish, which are cool in the fact that they swim vertically and moved as a group, would get scared as a group, would probably do everything as a group. Finally, right before our ascent, we saw a parrotfish in a bubble. Parrotfish form a mucus bubble around themselves when they sleep which holds in their scent do they can't be found. I had never seen one before, it was awesome. Even earlier bed time due to more exhaustion from another four dive day Day 3: Early morning, and then what I refer to as the dawn dive. We saw the biggest parrotfish imaginable, along with a couple sharks that hadn't woken up yet. I also kind of kept getting a little too close and scaring annoying them. They tended to be white-tip reef sharks, not dangerous, but still quite cool. Of course there were tons of other cool fish and such,  just like in every other dive. On the next and last two dives the big things were the enormous turtles that essentially just ignored us or tried to swim away. Right at the end of the last dive, boom giant turtle. Nice way to end the last dive. Then we had to travel back...you could say it was a bit of a bumpy ride. That would be an understatement. One instructor (Rocky) went to bed before it even started because she knew otherwise she would get sick. James, the cook, was taking inventory and a stack of bowls fell and broke. The fridge with all the soda burst open and there were cans all over place. This was despite a bungee chord keeping it closed. Also the two little Swedish girls had to run to the back of the boat. I felt a little bad for them. Another guy literally turned green. I went up to the top of the boat so I could enjoy the rollercoaster to the fullest. Twas fun. Got dropped off, ended up back at the dive shop and then was finally dropped off at hotel. My hair was in such bad condition after 8+ hours of saltwater in three days with no real showers, that I used conditioner, yes conditioner. Don't be alarmed, I survived. Now it's time to start to travel home. Sydney tomorrow, home the next "day"