I saw how wickedly cold it was at home today but......

Damn it was friggin hot here today.  By far the hottest day yet.  It has cooled off nicely tonight with a good breeze.
Did both of the morning dives today while Glen and Mandy went to the Butterfly farm and Eileen did her morning hike.  There were a few interesting critters.  Right below the boat where we jumped in for the first dive was a nurse shark, tucked down in a narrow channel with his head under one side and his tail under the other side.  He might have been about five feet long.  We didn't disturb him for a better view.  Quite a few big lionfish, but Chris had not brought along a spear.  Saw a group of three banded coral shrimp living inside of a barrel sponge, they were quite large.  I'll put up pictures of them and the shark, although neither turned out very well.  The second dive we did bring along a couple of spears but this time there were no lionfish.  Tony, the boat captain had a few lionfish fillets marinating and he cooked them up after the second dive so that we could have a taste.  They were really good although it would take quite a few lionfish to make a good meal.
Spent the afternoon lazing on the deck trying to stay cool, without too much sucess and without too much beer consumption.  We had a night snorkel booked at sunset.  We got geared up in wetsuits, got our dive lights and in we went with Marvin the groundskeeper guiding us.  First thing we saw were a few lobsters, actually quite a few.  Over the course of the hour or so snorkel, we must have seen twenty of them and some were huge, probably in the order of three pound tails.  And could they ever move fast when they were out in the open.  Marvin would dive down and tease them.  They would turn and quickly strike out at him.  We only saw one octopus, who would cruise along the bottom and then wrap himself over a rock almost like a parachute would.  Unfortunately by this time my camera battries died.  I should have known better to leave the same batteries in there that I'd used on the morning dives.....A couple of moray eels, the first one was a small spotted moray just sticking his nose out of a hole.  The second one was a big green one that seems to live right underneath the steps of the dock where we always enter the water.  I'll have to look for him tomorrow.  Glen and I enjoyed the snorkel, eileen not quite as much.  She felt a bit disoriented in the dark and ended up with some mask issues.  She was happy to be done it, although she's glad she did it once.
Very late dinner at Tongs Thai and off to bed.  Tomorrow, I'll probably do the nine oclock dive and then we're going over to West Bay for lunch and a snorkel on Glen and Mandys last day here.  They've been over there but we haven't snorkelled West Bay yet.  There are no cruise ships tomorrow, so it will be quiet over there,


Nurse shark, sleeping in a sand channel



Banded coral shrimp