August Diving

As it had been a while since my last dive, I decided Sunday was a good day to return to the ocean depths. Phil also wanted to dive so we arranged to go out with Keith. Other than an Australian woman on holiday, it was just us and Keith and his girlfriend Yuka.

After a rainy Saturday, Sunday was a beautiful and sunny day. We headed out on Keith's smaller boat and motored down the east side. The wind was light and the waves small. We made quick progress through the islands and out German Channel. As we rounded Ngemelis, we were exposed to the wind and waves got larger, but were still manageable. We arrived at Blues Holes for the first dive of the day.

Phil wanted to dive the Temple of Doom, a cavern inside the Blue Holes. Temple of Doom earned its name when two divers got lost inside and died in the 1980's. Initially, Keith didn't want to do it, but as it would just be Phil and I he decided to take us in. I was not particularly thrilled with the idea. Once we got in the water they descended rapidly, which was too fast for me and I was having trouble equalizing my ears at 80 feet. They were ready to go into the cavern, but I decided to stay in the holes because my ears just equalized and it was pretty dark. Keith had a light and I could see them disappear into the distance. After about five minutes they returned and later Phil told me they saw the turtle skeleton back in the cave.

We left Blue Holes and swam down the side of the reef until we reached Blue Corner. There were a few large reef sharks that swam near us and Keith tried to get them to swim closer. We swam up and over the reef and across the corner. There we saw white tip sharks resting on the bottom, a large school of trevally, and a green turtle hanging out on a coral outcrop. Our time was up and after our safety stop we surfaced.

For the lunch interval, we remained tied up at Blue Corner. A friendly turtle was cruising the area and popped its head up occasionally. After the requisite time, we jumped in for an afternoon dive at Blue Corner. After saying hello to the turtle, we proceeded to corner and used our reef hooks to hook in. The show before us was tremendous with a dozen sharks, napoleon wrasse, a large school of skipjacks, and little clownfish in the anemones where we hooked in. The sharks were plentiful and were doing laps back and forth in front us getting very close. The wrasse came over and hung out next to us and watched the show. We stayed hooked in for 20-25 minutes enjoying the action.

Leaving the corner, we headed back across the reef. Along the way, Keith pointed out the aptly named leaf fish that looks like a small leaf and an eel. As we swam the current began picking up and it felt as if we were constantly being shifted left and right. We soon reach the buoy line where our boat was waiting and did our safety stop before surfacing.

The boat ride back was uneventful (if you can call a boat ride through the rock islands uneventful). When we reached Malakal Harbor, our boat driver slowed down and Keith spotted four large manta rays easily visible from the boat. They were massive and we followed them for a little while as they glided along. An unexpected treat to end a fun day of diving.