Ol' Blue and Chez Hines - 9 March 2001

Rock Beauty	Honeycomb Cowfish	Threespot Damselfish
Spotted Eel	Schoolmaster	Grouper at Chez Hines

Another pretty rough exit, more heavy surf and surge, although entry wasn't too bad. But this dive was worth it! A mild current was sweeping us gently from our exit point, adding to the challenge.

Saw a free-swimming Moray, a big Porcupinefish, tons of Threespot Damselfish aggressively guarding their little pieces of coral, and not at all afraid of challenging Divers Ed an Beth.

Also saw Bicolor Damselfish, much less aggressive. This was a very pleasant, very relaxing dive site with plentiful sponges. We spent a lot of time looking for Frogfish to no avail... but regardless, we'll be coming back to this site again!

After our beating, we were ready for a relaxing entrance and exit at the hotel dive site! We were pretty weary but made quick work of the swim out to the buoy. Then the fun began.

Beth accidentally lost her Aquashot 3e camera! I signed "Where's camera", she didn't know. I looked up, and sure enough, 60 feet above us it was bobbling slowly, silhouetted against the silvery surface. We laughed and did our slow, careful ascent to retrieve it.

I spent over five minutes trying to coax a good picture of a Rock Beauty that was deliberately keeping himself hidden in a coral head, and then tried for a picture of a huge Spotted Drum. No luck with the Drum but the Beauty picture is shown above. All in all a very relaxing, very quiet dive, just the thing to round out this busy dive day!