Monday 14 April 2008

Hammerhead seen on the North Wall


We saw a HAMMERHEAD..We saw a hammerhead! Not only did we see it, we hung out, for a good 10 mins as she cruised the top of the wall at Black Forest...what a joy. You could hear our hearts beating faster, the oxygen surged through the bronchioles as we witnessed something majestic. A perfect example of evolution, a top predator.
Okay, now we are calm we can also talk about Tarpon Alley, it seems that the Black Tip Caribbean Reef Shark has made this his territory. We (like Peter and Ron on their last dive) pretty much dropped onto him. The vis was good at first and then regressed as the tide rolled in, however the big pelagics seem to favour this, so we should too.
We pottered along to the next dive destination, enjoying a small boat population, and having Jack all to ourselves. Which is to say, that we let Jack do all the work whilst the chics gossipped!
Black Forest was awesome, Sharon and Pippa spotted the Eagle Ray at the wall, Shaz signalled to her buddy, however all she could see was a pair of legs wiggling around in the water column, as he was face down in the coral photographing something random. When Jack did emerge he saw a beautiful Eagle Ray, as did Laura. She left us, and then returned to the top of the wall to forage. It was lobster city down there too, much shaninigans were going on for sure, within the Lobster Community. It was like the election for the next American President, with Lobsters vying for positions, and territory, not to mention the other power plays that were taking part between those of opposite genders....
The shark came along as we all headed up for our safety stop. First a grey ghost and then a manifestation of a pure killer. She hung around a long time (unlike the Black Tip) she came in for a good look too, extremely curious. There was one time where she turned to face us, with her teeth bared..I was not frightened..all I had to do was to stab Jack, take his camera (well, its expensive) and reach for the surface whilst he got eaten!
Jack got some wicked shots of her, at one point we had the hammerhead and an Eagle Ray both in our sites! We were all mega excited at the safety stop, Pippa less so as she had dived with shoals of Hammerheads in the Cococ Is..yawn) but it was a great day. "We do not remember days, we remember moments" this was one of them.

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