Location: Muskmelon Bay, Guana Island
Today, I woke up at 6:30 in the morning to look into the water for sharks or jacks. After the end of dawn, which was about 6:50-ish, I fully began the day before anyone woke up by doing a set of core workouts which included a 1-minute plank followed by two 30-second side planks on each arm, then 50 sit-ups and 30 Russian twists. By the time I finished, everyone was up and ready to start the day. Breakfast was a delicious array of pancakes prepared by Savannah and Amelia. After breakfast, we watched a film about the sunken ship The Kraken, followed by an educational video about Night Diving from PADI. Then we made our way to the Kraken itself, where we had a spectacular wreck dive. I buddied with Olivia, and since it was a wreck, we were always checking around for sharks. However, unfortunately, we did not get to see any. There were large schools of Porgies and French Grunts around the bow of the wreck, though. Around these shoals were a pair of Spanish Mackerel that I, personally, had never seen diving before.
Some other things we saw were Giant Hermit Crabs, Yellow line Arrow Crabs, and a school of Creole Wrasse. Once we were on the boat, we ate a lunch consisting of ramen noodles and left for the Muskmellon dive site. The ride over was a long one, so I decided to search through the Fish Identification guide and write down every single species of fish that we had seen so far on the trip. After I had the fish section completed, which had two whole notebook pages lined front and back with fish species, I decided to do the same thing with invertebrates. The list contained two different kinds of coral and their subspecies, Jellyfish, Crustaceans, Urchins, Sponges, Barnacles, and Sea Cucumbers. When I had finished, I had four full pages of all the fish and inverts we had seen so far. I will include a partial list of species at the end of the blog for those interested. After we had arrived, we were told we had to snorkel the dive site for natural references and a general layout of the site prior to our upcoming solo night dive that happened tonight. I got in the water with Xander and Alex, and we swam around the site for a good 20 minutes while we scouted the dive site.
When we got back to the boat, we had dinner, which was chili with rice, which was mildly interrupted by the need to set up our gear while we still had daylight left. So when our gear was set up and dinner was cleaned up, we had our dive briefing for the solo night dive. We had assigned dive buddies, and we were to talk to them and come up with a plan for the night dive. I had Sofia as my buddy, and we agreed that we would descend down the anchor chain and then East for 10 minutes once we reached a rock that had distinctive markings. While kitting up, we discovered that Dan and Savannah had a similar plan to us, so we decided to make a dual buddy pair, and we would travel together. So we get in the water, and we immediately notice the abnormally strong current pushing North that was not there when we were snorkeling an hour before. Other groups had already descended, so we decided to factor it into our route and descend. Immediately in the pitch-black water, a silvery shape emerged from the darkness to reveal a 6-foot-long Tarpon that we named Jimbo. He would continue to make passes and follow us for the rest of the dive.
We get to our natural reference point to turn East, and then we head East for 10 minutes. Everything checked out on our turnaround point, and so we began heading back to the boat. The first of our problems occurred when we had traveled for 10 minutes on a reciprocal heading West and had not found our natural reference point. I made the decision to continue West for another minute because the compass still said we were going the right way. After a minute of constant Jimbo scares, we reached the wall of the reef. To note, we did not begin or even see any reef walls on our snorkel or at the beginning of the dive. I then realized the current must-have pushed us North and we were very much lost. I signaled to ascend with a safety stop which was one of the most frightening experiences of my life because I could feel something watching us in the darkness beyond the view of our lights. I could not monitor the surroundings because I had to keep checking my dive computer for the time of our safety stop and our depth to make sure we were at 5 meters. We ascended and found that my prediction had been right. We were 40-50 feet north of the boat when we ascended. Nonetheless, we still saw many things like a Caribbean Spiny Lobster, Spotted Moray Eel, many sleeping Parrotfish, and a Conch. Overall, today was excellent, and many new experiences were had.
Fish list:
Angelfish:
Rock Beauty Angelfish
Queen Angelfish
French Angelfish
Gray Angelfish
Butterflyfish:
Banded Butterflyfish
Foureyed Butterflyfish
Spotfin Butterflyfish
Tang/Surgeonfish:
Blue Tang
Ocean Surgeonfish
Doctorfish
Jacks:
Bar Jack
Horse-eye Jack
Palometa
Mackerels:
Spanish Mackerel
Tarpon
Needlefishes:
Keeltail Needlefish
Houndfish
Barracuda:
Great Barracuda
Porgies:
Knobbed Porgy
Mojarras:
Yellowfin Mojarra
Sea Chubs:
Bermuda Chub
Grunts:
French Grunt
Blue striped Grunt
Caesar Grunt
Sailors Choice
Margate (White)
Porkfish
Snappers:
Dog Snapper
Yellowtail Snapper
Black Snapper
Schoolmaster
Damselfishes:
Bicolor Damselfish
Longfin Damselfish
Dusky Damselfish
Cocoa Damselfish
Threespot Damselfish
Sergeant Major
Yellowtail Damselfish
Chromises:
Blue Chromis
Brown Chromis
Purple reef-fish
Hamlets:
Barred Hamlet
Groupers:
Nassau Grouper
Graysby
Rock Hind
Coney
Basslets:
Royal Gramma Basslet
Parrotfish:
Blue Parrotfish
Rainbow Parrotfish
Queen Parrotfish
Saddled Parrotfish
Reef Parrotfish
Stoplight Parrotfish
Princess Parrotfish
Green Blotch Parrotfish
Hogfishes:
Hogfish
Spanish Hogfish
Wrasses:
Creole Wrasse
Yellow-headed Wrasse
Bluehead
Slippery Dick (Not a typo. Look it up)
Clown Wrasse
Squirrelfishes:
Squirrelfish
Long spine Squirrelfish
Blackbar Soldierfish
Bigeyes:
Bigeye
Cardinalfishes:
Flamefish
Gobies:
Neon Goby
Barsnout Goby
Sharknose Goby
Spotted Goby
Masked Goby
Peppermint Bearded Goby
Seminole Goby
Spottail Goby
Blennies:
Molly Miller
Red lip Blenny
Jawfishes:
Yellowhead Jawfish
Lizardfishes:
Inshore Lizardfish
Trumpetfishes:
Atlantic Trumpetfish
Tilefishes:
Sand Tilefish
Goatfishes:
Spotted Goatfish
Yellow Goatfish
Puffers:
Sharpnose Puffer
Goldface Toby
Caribbean Puffer
Porcupinefishes:
Porcupinefish
Spotfin Burrfish
Cowfish/Trunkfish:
Honeycomb Cowfish
Smooth Trunkfish
Triggerfishes:
Queen Triggerfish
Black Durgon
Filefishes:
Whitespotted Filefish
Pygmy Filefish
Scrawled Filefish
Fringed Filefish
Drums:
Spotted Drum
Jackknife fish
Eels:
Spotted Moray
Giraffe Garden Eels
Sharks:
Nurse Shark
Blacktip Shark
Lemon Shark
Atlantic Sharpnose Shark
Rays:
Caribbean Ray
Caribbean Whiptail Ray
Southern Stingray
Roughtail Stingray
Turtles:
Green Sea Turtle