Eddy's Scuba Blog

This was going to be my last day of dving for this trip. Since I was only planning to do 2 dives today, I decided not use nitrox. I would later regret that decision. Today's group was smaller and all the familiar faces (dive buddies) were back home or about to leave. We sailed on a smaller boat, not the catamaran that we were using all week. Althought this boat was smaller, it could easily fit 15+ divers. The divemasters were different this time as well. There was Jesus and Raymundo who was my nitrox instructor. It's funny that I went out with Raymundo on my first dive in Cozumel and now I'm on my last dive. I was lucky that throught this trip there were no crowds on the boats and the hotel was on a minimal occupancy. I was given one of the best rooms and the best individualized attention. I was told that two groups of 30+ people were arriving on the day I was leaving. I really luck out.

First Dive: Colombia Reef
This was my second time to Colombia. The boat trip there took a whole hour to get there. The weather was sunny and clear. My divemaster this time was Jesus. I had a long chat with him on the way to the dive site. He was telling me about the creatures and how he wanted to start a business in video photography. We got into the water at about 9:30 am. As the last time, the scenery was breathtaking, pinnacles, drop-offs and swim-thrus. Here's a picture while brossing one of those swim-thrus:

We were also graced by a sea turtle that cruised above us:

We finished the dive on a sandy area. My maximum depth on this dive was 95 ft and I was already approaching my time to ascend. So I started to hover above the group at about 40 ft. This is shen a shool of horse eye jacks passed in front of me. A horse eye jack is called "jurel" in Spanish. I remember from my childhood that "jurel" was a low quality fish, good only for soups. Here's a close-up picture of a "jurel", it was about 3 ft away from me and it must have been 2.5 ft long:

Last Dive: Tormentos Reef

My previous dive was not very enjoyable. There were two women in the group that had horrible "diver etiquette." They would chase the divemaster, monopolize time with creatures that were found and cut you off on a swim-thru. They should be sent back to finishing school.

So, I decided to switch groups. On this dive, I went with Raymundo, my nitrox instructor. I believe the two girls going with him were on a course dive. Anyway, the group was smaller and it turn out to be more enoyable dive. From the get go we saw nice creatures like this king crab:

On the briefing, Raymundo told us that were going to see a "huge" drum fish. How did he know? It looks like they really know the neighborhood. We'll see if fulfill his promise ...

After seeing the crab, we spotted a huge spiny lobster. I believe this is one of the biggest ones I've seen. It must have been 2 ft long ...

After that I swam to a sandy area where I noticed something moving up and down. It was "jawfish". They are difficult to photograph because they retreat to their hole when you approach them. Here's a picture of the jawfish hiding in its hole:

Patience reward photographers, so here's a picture of the same jawfish, completely out of its hole, after several minutes of quiet and patient waiting:

Jawfish have beautiful tail fins. The coral formations on this reef were beautiful and colorful. The visibility was also great. There must have been nearly 100 ft of visibility. I passed by this staghorn coral. It looks like a picture from a fish tank.

Afterwards, I rejoined the group, and Raymundo, the divemaster, pointed out this scorpion fish. On this picture, I caught a shot from its side.

Raymundo also found a nudibranch. It was sitting on grassy plant. It was bright red and white. Unfortunately, I could not get a good shot. Every attempt I made to photograph a nudibranch on this trip had resulted on an out-of-focus picture. Even with the macro setting, this camera could not focus well in those conditions.

Instead, I did get a great picture of this scrawled filefish as it passed by in front of me. It measured about 1.5 ft long. On this picture, the fish seems to be suspended on air.

Now came the time when Raymundo fullfilled his promise. We spotted a "huge" spotted drum fish. This one must have been 4 inches long. It was "chubby" as well. As usual it was swimming inside its coral hole.

At about 55 ft and 55 minutes into the dive we found a sea horse. I was already running out of air and my dive computer was telling me that I was getting into decompression. What a bummer! This is when nitrox comes into play, unfortunately, that day I was using air, nitrox would have given me more bottom time. Since this was my last dive and were in a group of four people, we extended the dive a few more minutes. We checked our air and some people in the group had spare air to share. We spent more time trying to get a good shot at the seahorse. Here's probably my best shot at a seahorse on this trip:

We spent close to 5 minutes taking pictures, more than we should have. Raymundo took this picture of me with the seahorse and this is was only one of three.

After a barrage of pictures, we quickly started our ascent. We were past our limits already. We were 1 hour 2 mins into the dive and my dive computer was already blinking saying that I was entering into decompression. At 20 ft and 2 minutes into the safety stop, I was essentially out of air. I started to share air with Sofia, who was also in our group. She still had 1000 psi! We spent about 11 minutes on the safety stop, but still my dive computer was saying that I needed 10 more minutes of decompression. In the end, we finished the dive with no problems and that last seahorse was worth it :D. Here's the graph of my dive profile:

Lessons Learned:

• Use nitrox whenever you can, you never know when you will be running into an interesting creature.
• Nitrox is the best friend of underwater photography.
• Only attempt to push the limits when you have a trustworthy buddy, but watch for overly aggressiveness.
• Do not try this at home. This was a one-off situation.

Post Dive Notes:

• After analyzing the dive profiles at home, it turns out that the computer had given me 34 min of no-deco time at begining of the second dive. This was conservative compared to other similar profiles I had done the previous days. On those other dives the computer had given me 58 mins. At that point, the computer must have come up with that number based on other parameters like previous dives.

• On a Suunto Cobra computer, when you reach a decompression limit, you will get an "ASC" time. This is the "estimated ascend time" which includes:

  • Estimated time to reach the ceiling +
  • Time needed at the ceiling +
  • Time needed at mandatory safety stop (if any) +
  • 3 min recommended safety stop +
  • Estimated time needed to reach the surface

  (Source: Suunto)

• On an emergency decompression situation (this is when you pass a no-decompression limit), if the no-deco limit is passed by no more than 5 mins, an 8-min 15ft deco stop is mandatory. If a no-deco limit is excedded by more than 5 mins, a deco stop of 15 mins is urged, air supply permitting. (Source: PADI)
• Here are two articles that talk about decompression diving and how it should be planned. Not that I would plan one, but it talks about some principles that are not commonly mentioned:
  http://www.scubadiving.com/training...ression_diving/
  http://www.scubadiving.com/index2.p...o_pdf=1&id=3361

It's the next to last day of diving on this trip. As first dive this morning we are heading to Palancar Reef, one of the most famous reefs in Cozumel. Palancar was very similar to Colombia (is right next to it). You see pinnacles, swim-thrus, big drop-offs and coral canyons. On the walls of those canyons you can see colorful corals, like this brown tube sponge:

Or this white anemone:

This was place to try backlit shots. It is easier to get a shot of a diver above you and get some of the coral sillouette. Since we usually moved north (because of the current), the sun was on your right (this was at 9:40 in the morning). Here's a shot of diver sillouette:

The first half of this dive was excellent. But then you reached a sandy area where there was not much to see ... until this sea turtle show up while I was starting to hover at 40 ft. You always run into surprises ...

I was starting my ascend. I was seeing nothing but blue with a sandy bottom ... until I saw this jelly fish right in front of my camera. It was no bigger than 2 inches ... this was a lucky shot.

Second Dive: Chankanaab
For some reason, I don't recall this dive as too memorable. I got the chance to get better shots at creatures that I have seen before. Like this spotted moray eel:

I've been using Nitrox on most of my dives, so far ... however, I have not really taken advantage of it. Second dives have been about 1 hrs in duration. And the maximum number of dives in a day for me has been 4 dives. I was starting to question the utility of nitrox in this particular trip and it's costing $8 a bottle.

On this secon dive, I got a better shot of a king crab, although I've seen one previous. Other shots that I've taken before have been either blurry or out of frame. This crab has the legs of a tarantula:

Third Dive: Shore Dive
This was going to be my last shore dive on this trip. When I first arrived, they have told me that since the shore dive was only 20ft, you have a lot of time to wait around and get a nice picture. It has been true so far, I have seen incredible creatures like the octopus one night and a sea horse one afternoon, right on our backyards.

My dive buddies were (again) Meghan and Josh. At Scuba Club Cozumel, it was relatively easy connect to other divers and find buddies, if (like in my case) you were solo.

Again, like they say, every dive is different. Lo and behold, we discovered more creatures on this neighborhood. First of all, there were lots of fish hanging around by the pier. There were schools and schools blue striped grunts, probably looking for divers to watch. Like in this picture:

The plan was to swim south (to the next hotel), and let the current take us back to Scuba Club. So the three of us swam south. However, Josh sayed behind and he had to go back to look for him. It turns out that he was chasing this sea snake eel:

On the night dive yesterday, we saw a sea snake as well, but because they move so quickly, it was hard to get a picture of it in the dark. Also they are rather thin, no more than 1 inch in diameter, so it was difficult to focus.

On this dive, we saw old friends from before, like this peacok flounder. On this picture, you can see better its blue spots. They change colors to blend in with the sand.

As I had mentioned before, they had dropped metalic scrap in front of the resort in order to create an artificial reef. Here is a picture of an anemone giving a home to agroup of wrasses on top of a piece of scrap metal.

I'm halfway down this trip and finally I will break my 3-dive/day mark to 4 dives today. Today, in addition to the regular 2 morning dives, I signed up for the "twilight dive" later today. It's a 2-tank boat dive, one in the afternoon and another at night.

This morning we are doing one of the most difficults dives in Cozumel: Punta Sur Devil's Throat, a deep cavern dive at 130ft. Punta Sur, which is Spanish for "south point" is also the southernmost point of Cozumel. The day before, one of my dive buddies, Roger, "the professor" suggested going to Punta Sur to Nestor, our divemaster that day. Roger was a professor of zoology and had done 1000+ dives. His wife, Sallie had also 1000+ dives under her belt and was still using an ancient US Divers mask (I used to have a similar one when I was a kid). The nice thing about Scuba Club was that you could request a particular location and most of the time your request was fullfilled.

Most of the guys on this dive were people I already dove with before. It was nice to dive with people more experienced than you, you always learn something every time. Roger and Sallie had such great buoyancy and air consumption. Unlike me, with the current and while trying to get into position to get a better shot, I tended to consume my air rapidly. Sallie graciously offered me to share air on the ascend. That day I did not use nitrox because of the depth.

So off we went, we were to descend as quickly as possible, and follow the divemaster on a single line. We were going thru the Devil's Throat. We went thru a narrow tunnel lined with red sponges. At times the tunnel had a slope up of 45 degrees with a sandy bottom. There were many other tunnels, but we went thru the smallest one. After passing it, we were in an outstanding cave called the "Little Cathedral" because of this crosss-shaped sponge on the wall:

This was a natural formation!

Coming out of cave, we were facing the blue ocean at 130 ft. After that, we proceeded to ascend while still enjoying the scenery of pinacles and deep blue drop-offs. This time we had to make sure to spend 3-5 minutes as a safety stop. During the ascend, my dive buddie Sallie offered me to share air, she still had over 1000 psi while I had only 700s.

That was one cool dive. I later read that this dive is only recommended for very advanced divers. Nestor, the divemaster, said he was very happy with the group, as everything went according to plan. He said he usually learned about the divers days before (observe how they dived) before taking them to Punta Sur. And that he did not take just anybody to this dive. So thru the Devil's Throat we went and came back from it safely.

Lesson Learned:

• Look for a dive buddy with better air consumption than you ;)

Second Dive: Yucab Reef
For our second dive we went to Yucab, a shallow reef with depth of 60 ft. On this dive I saw plenty of creatures that I had not seen before. It was a dive full of nice surprises. To begin with, we encountered this nurse shark sleeping under a small cave:

This was the best picture I got among 7 other pictures I took of this shark. There were a lot of tiny, plankton-like creatures near the cave. I think they were tiny brine shrimp. They were ruining my shots :(

After leaving the cave, a barracuda and a grouper were cruising along. This is my first picture of a barracuda:

Then I passed by this big gray angelfish, which was about 2-ft long:

And this curious-looking "honeycomb cowfish". Notice the nice "honeycomb" pattern of its body and I guess it's called "cowfish" because of the horns:

Later on, the divemaster, pointed out this strange-looking fish on the sand. At first look it was difficult to see it. But then you could notice the reddish color of its body. It's a "spotted scorpionfish". You wouldn't want want to be stung by this one because it's venomous.

Towards the end of the dive, I ventured on my own ahead of the group. I was lucky to spot a spiny lobster out in the open! It was walking on the coral. Usually they are well hidden inside their holes.

Here's another close-up picture of the same lobster, walking backwards into its hole.

Finally, I took a picture of this big fish (must have been over 2ft long) which crossing my path. I later learned it was an "ocean triggerfish"

Third Dive: Paso del Cedral
At about 4:30pm we left for our twilight dive. This dive felt like a "bus tour". We were going along a ridge. On the right side, you could see an inclined wall and on the left side, there was the open deep blue. It felt like a bus tour because you hardly had time to take pictures of the "monuments". You could only fight the current for a couple of minutes.

The first thing I see is this tombstone in the middle of the ocean! The epitaph said "In Loving Memory, Manolo Salsas, Descended Dec 13, 1946 - Ascended Sep 8, 2002." I hope this was his favorite dive spot.

I'm wondering how many people know about this tombstone. The divemasters didn't say anything about it in the briefings. Unfortunately, I was somewhat separated from the group, so I don't think anybody else saw it.

Drifting along, I passed the home of this family of three spiny lobsters. It look like dad, mom and son lobster.

At that point I was ahead of group. In a drift dive, if you are ahead, the rest of the group will get to where you are (due to the current). So using my noisemaker I pointed at the lobsters and made the "lobster" sign (3 fingers on your head). On this trip, I had brought two noisemakers. I lent one of them to Meghan. Together with Josh (her husband) we were on most of the dives this week. We got into the habit of shaking the noisemaker when we saw something. I would later be very thankful for lending that noisemaker.

After seeing the lobster, I was passed by this huge queen angelfish. It pulled an "imperial cruiser" on me, you know like in Star Wars ;) I could barely fit it inside the picture.

Later on, the divemaster pointed out this curious looking fish, it's called the "spotted drum". Its dorsal and ventral fins are bigger than the fish itself! The signal for this fish is moving your arms as if you are playing a drum.

Spotted drums are always swimming inside little holes in a coral formation. You never see them in the open. With the current it was challenging to position in a good spot to take a picture. That was affecting my air consumption. After spotting the spotted drum, I was approaching 700 psi and I started to hover above the group at about 40 ft. It was toward the end of the dive that I hear Meghan's noisemaker from afar (this is what I'm thankful for). She must have been more thatn 40 yards behind me. When I see her, I see her pointing at something. It was a spotted eagle ray cruising along right below me ... speaking of "spotted", from spotted drum to spotted eagle ray.

This is another picture of the same eagle ray from above. If you look closer you can see Nemo and friends on top of the eagle ray ... just kidding ;). This was the highlight of the dive.

Lessons Learned:

• If you have a noisemaker, get another one.
• If you have more than one noisemaker, give one to your dive buddy.
• Noisemaker: $15
• Eagle Ray: Priceless

Fourth Dive: Night Dive at Paraiso Reef

This was going to be the only boat night dive of this trip. Actually, I did not have high expectations for this dive. The night before, I had already got pretty good pictures of an octupus, so I wasn't expecting to see much. I was going to be mistaken.

The dive started with specific instructions from the divemaster, not to stray away too much, since this was a night and a drift dive. There were other boats in the area as well. So we made sure that we were line up correctly. Here's a picture of me just getting ready to jump. Notice the beautiful color on the horizon. It was almost 8pm.

The reef was at about 40 ft. We saw some of the usual suspects, banded coral shrimp, stingray, octopus, but also some new ones. I could never get a good shot of small creatures. Also the darkness added an extra complexity factor. To add to the problem, my main light was dying. I don't know what went wrong with it because I had just changed the batteries. Fortunately I was carrying a second light, a pen flashlight. With the help of my dive buddies, I was able to spot this octopus:

Because I was having issues with my flashlight, I thought that was it for me. Theres's nothing much to see or take pictures of something if you can't see. So instead of focusing on myself, I just follow other divers' lights. The scene was kind of eerie, it's like being in a dark room with beams light shining from atop. As I followed their lights, I noticed a hole in a coral formation and see what I thought was a nurse shark, since we saw many of those in a similar habitat during the day. I was mistaken ... it was green, not grey ....

I would say its body was about 2 ft in diameter, that's why I thought it was a nurse shark.
It was an enormous green moray eel!! Here's its head from another angle. Notice the disproportion between its head and its body!

I have never seen such a big moray eel. I wonder how long it was. It must have been at least 6 ft long.

Lessons learned:

• In a night dive, try shutting off your own light and follow your buddies lights. Let your buddies do the job of searching for creatures ;)
• Again, if you have an extra noisemaker, give it to your buddy. Establish a "watch patrol"
  protocol.
• SCUBA is really a team sport of at least two.

Today we are off to Colombia Reef, one of best reefs in Cozumel (next to Palancar). From the get go the scenery was breathtaking with spectacular drop-offs and big coral formations. We went down to 90 ft and you could see wonderful "gorgonian fans" like this one.

Everything was bigger and notably photogenic. This "yellow tube" coral was about 2-3 ft in diameter.

However, the marine life was not as abundant, probably because we were in deeper water. This dive was different from all the others. There were many swimthrus and spectacular formations. We were told that big fish tend to be around this area. Towards the end of the dive, I didn't see any big fish but saw this turtle which was the highlight in terms of marine life. I think it's a green sea turtle.

Second Dive: Tormentos Reef
After 1 and 15 min surface interval we went to Tormentos, a shallower reef which was 30 to 66 ft deep. From the beginning I encounter this big grouper cruising along no more than 5 ft away from me. This was my closest encounter with a grouper so far.

We did manage to see another sea horse on this dive. However, this dive was not as enjoyable. There were 2 women that shot up to the surface and the divemaster had to follow them. So we spent the rest of the time horsing around.

Taking the Nitrox Test
We returned to the hotel at about 1:00pm. Today I was planning to do a night shore dive, so I had the whole afternoon to rest and get ready for my PADI Nitrox exam. So far the requirements for certification have been pretty easy. The only new skill you need to learn is how measure the oxygen content in the tanks and rest is only theory (table calculations). Nitrox gives you longer no-decompression limits, so you can dive at 70 ft as if you were at 50 ft, so to to speak. Since the tanks contain more oxygen, you have less residual nitrogen in your body and can do more repetive dives. They give you a booklet to read for the course, which I had read one half when my instructor said that I was ready to take the test. So in the afternoon, I watched a PADI video, did a couple of theory exercises and then I took the exam. It was a 25 multiple-choice question exam, some about knowledge and some were exercises using the nitrox tables and formulas. You had to get 75% right to pass it. I aced the exam :D ... I got 100% and I even found an error on the exam ;).

Scuba Club Cozumel, the Place, the Bed and the Food
Before choosing Scuba Club, I checked Scubaboard.com to ask for opinions. There were some negative comments about the hardness of the beds and the food.
Well, in my opinion, I wasn't dissapointed, the place was "as advertised". It is a very diver- oriented resort, you had your own balcony to dry out your dive gear, gear lockers by the dive shop and by the beach. The furniture was "embedded" on the walls including the bed, night tables, desk, and benches. I would say that the place had a lot of "character", it was original, with stucco walls and Spanish-styled mayolicas (tiles). Every toom was different, so you were not getting a cookie cutter hotel like in the US. The bed, indeed was harder than a normal bed, however, it wasn't that bad. It was like sleeping on a thick futon mattress on a hard floor.

The sunsets at Scuba Club were spectacular. You could either watch it from your room, the pier or the hammock area.

The food ... was pretty good by my standards, and I like gourmet food. Even though this was an "all-inclusive" place, the food didn't taste like "all-inclusive" at all, except for breakfast, which was a buffet. For lunch and dinner, your food was made to order, that is the dish was not sitting on a heat lamp for hours. For dinner, there was the dinner room which was on the second floor overseeing the water. There was a bar there as well.

The dinner food was "border-line gourmet", I would say, they really tried to make it special. The seasoning and quality was pretty good and they even try really hard on the decoration. For dinner you always had 3 courses: a salad or a soup, a main course and dessert. Here are two examples of the dessert, chocolate cake and carrot cake. And they were really good :).

Camera ... Octopus Action!
After dinner, I was ready for a night dive. This was my fourth shore dive at Scuba Club. It is said that no dive is ever the same, that saying was true this time indeed. From talking to other divers, an octopus was reported to live in the neighborhood. During dinner the previous night, I could see the lights on the water and they were really close to the shore. So we were on our mission to find that octopus. I was diving with my dive buddies, Meghan and Josh. We had dived together several times, so we already developed a good bond and friendship. Josh was the one who first spotted the octopus, and the adventure began.

I was lucky to have both Meghan and Josh as my "spotters", as it was hard to point my flashlight with one hand and my camera on another. It was also difficult to see what you are shooting on the digital visor, especially in the dark. However, I did get great pictures of the octopus, thanks in great part of my dive buddies Meghan and Josh:

These are pictures of the same octopus, notice the shifting of colors from green to brown with white spots. These are amazing creatures, they are so elastic and it was fascinating watching it scour the bottom, extend its tentacles and, I guess, have "dinner" their way.

This is the best picture I got in terms of resolution. Notice the octopus' eye. I was lucky to get pictures in focus, sometimes the infrared range finder would point to the wrong place, thanks in part of my bad spotting of the subject.

After "chasing" the octopus for a while, we witnessed something amazing ... we saw the octopus "take off" from the ground like a rocket and swim all the way to surface. Josh, told me that at some point the octopus was *practically* on my camera's lens. This is how I got this picture, which is the best picture and a priceless memory of this dive.

Addendum: Here's an mpeg movie of the same octopus. It's amazing how it moves on the bottom of the ocean.

The rain from last night continued into today. The wind has picked up and the sea is choppy. You could see swells of 2-3 ft. It seems that the conditions are not bad enough to cancel boat operations. Off we went, it's going to be an interesting day.

It was relatively cold, I guess in the 70s. We needed shelter from the rain. We were even wearing our wetsuits to cope with the rain and cold! The seas were swelling, 4 ft at some points. I was getting a bit sea-sick already and wanted to get into the water soon.

We finally arrived to our dive site, Paso del Cedral. We had a new divemaster today. It turns out that I either miss the last part of the briefing or he didn't tell me. The divemaster has told everybody (except me?) that we were going straight to the bottom due to the conditions at the surface. When I jumped, I didn't see anybody on the surface. You couldn't see anybody anyway because of the 3ft swells. I pointed to the boat crew, and they signaled that they were already on the bottom. Fortunately I was able to see them.

That day I was also wearing 2 lbs less, following the recommendation of my instructor of the previous day. I would regret it later. On the surface, I had trouble sinking. I was wearing my 1-mm wetsuit as well, the previous days I wasn't. The water was 84 F, so it was warmer than the surface! At least that was a relief.

This dive was not very eventful, it terms of marine life. We saw the usual angelfish, trunkfish. Here's a picture of a school of porkfish.

Since we didn't find that many "interesting" marine life. I was hoping to find nice coral specimens to photograph. Here's a brain coral. It was about 2-3 ft in diameter.

For our second dive, we proceeded north to Las Palmas. This time I jumped straight to the bottom. This time we were luckier in terms of finding marine life. We spotted a splendid toadfish and the divemaster managed to lure it out of its hole. I managed to take one picture of it's beautiful yellow fins.

Then, I noticed that divers in my group were gathering around a hemisphere-shaped coral with a hole on the top. I manage to juggle into position and take this picture: nurse-shark-in-a-box.

This was actually my last picture of this dive, as I was experiencing buoyancy problems. As I said, I had come to regret taking those 2 lbs off. I was starting to float. I maneuvered to take all the air of my BC, but no air seemed to be left. It even felt that I had lost some of my weight. The current was also stronger today. And in certain places it could lift you up.

In the end I popped up to the surface. Fortunately, we were on a shallow dive and were cruising at about 40 ft for a while. I remember to exhale all the way up. After talking to my dive buddies they also felt that the current was lifting them up at certain places.

I learned two lessons today:

1. Better be overweighted than underweighted, specially with rough conditions.



2. I made sure to use the other valves on my BC. One on the right shoulder and the other on the bottom right side. It seems that there was an air pocket that I couldn't get out.

Third Shore Dive

After having a rough morning, I was ready for some rest. The swell had made me somewhat sea-sick. I had planned to take the twilight dive that night, but decided to do it another day. My head was not ready, and it would be a waste if I got sick, since you have to pay extra for the afternoon and twilight/night dives. These dives were $40-55 a pop. So after lunch, I decided to take a nap. You really dive, eat, sleep, dive, eat, sleep in this resort. That's what it's designed for.

At about 5:00pm I woke up and I was feeling much better, and willing to go diving. I ran into, Meghan and Josh, whom I met on my second day and we decided to go shore diving ... again.
They say that every dive is different, even if you go to the same place. Lo and behold, we found new neighborhood friends. This time I noticed a coral banded shrimp. It was so small that you really have to look carefully. I had found it by its white antenae. Fortunately, I had seen them on a fish tank before, so I could recognize them. Unfortunately my camera, did handle macro too well.

On the bottom, I also noticed a camouflaged flat fish. It was a "peacock flounder", it has raised black eyes and its body matches the sandy bottom except for its blue spots. You have to see them moving, otherwise they are pretty well hidden. The reason, I guess, it's called "peacock" is because of its dorsal fin, which raises like feathers of a peacock.