Last day at the house

Carol and I headed to West End for the morning dives, a beautiful sunny warm day with a bit of wind. The wind was the bad news when I heard they were heading to Spooky Channel for the first dive. I know it's a neat divesite but it's one of the furthest away that they would normally do. The trip there was a bit rough, so Carol was a bit green by the time we got there. I was at the end of the bench so I got geared up and hit the water quickly. Carol was a trooper and followed shortly behind. She struggled a bit getting down but once she was there, it was good although she was cold. Spooky Channel isn't a dive site for fish, it's more about the terrain, where an ancient stream has cut a deep gorge through the shelf. Some neat swim throughs and then we finished the dive on the main wall where the fish life picked up a bit.

This guy is about two inches long, and both Carol and I have forgotten the name that Mal gave for it. The closest I can find in the book is a Pygmy Filefish, but I'm not at all sure if that is correct.

Carol got rid of the remains of her breakfast once we were back on the boat, and once back on solid ground between dives, Mal did not think that she should go out again, as she would be dehydrated, etc. So I've temporarily lost my dive buddy, but we'll fix that at Marble Hills next week. The second dive was straight off the West Bay beach at a site called Mandy's Eel Garden. I've done this one once before but the eels are always pretty neat to see. Hundreds of them poking up from the sand, and then they withdraw when you get too close. Not too photogenic, but these guys are close to a foot long, waving in the air. Reminds me of a series of books the kids used to read that had this little worm like guy in all the pictures, I'm sure he was a garden eel.

Here is a nice juvenille Spotted Drum.

We also found a couple of turtles that were pretty friendly.

While the girls were waiting for me to get back from my second dive the saw a crowd of people on the street and this huge turtle being carried down the street. Apparently some poachers had speared this thing and they were taking it to a ddive shop to see if they could save it. The poachers were nabbed but we do not know the fate of the big turtle. We watched the end of the Canada-USA hockey game at Sundowners which was fun. The place was packed with Canadians, Aaron had team Canada flags hanging out over the street, and everyone was enjoying it. Mal, who is a Brit, couldn't believe how seriously that Canadians took their hockey.

Dinner tonight was at a place called the Frangipani Restaurant at the Mayoka Lodge. A class place all around, beautiful setting, great service and fantastic food. Certainly was not a budget night but worth it. Had a red pepper hummus appetizer that we could not finish because we would spoil the entree. Eileen had a marinated flank steak, Carol had panko crusted mahi mahi with a mango glaze, and I had a rack of lamb with a port reduction. Awesome meal. The first picture looks like we're indoors, but we're sitting on an open deck with that room in the background.

The sunset view from the restaurant.

Tomorrow we pack up and make the move up to Marble Hill Farms. We're really looking forward to this place for some different diving and some real laid back type relaxation to complete our holiday. We do not know the status of internet connections up there, but I'm sure there is something.

 

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