More Diving with Scuba Iguana

For the next day diving we headed back to the Itabaca Canal then loaded onto the dive boat and set off down the east side of Santa Cruz Island to Gordon Rocks, three rocks comprising the remains of the outer rim of a caldera.

 

The washing machine surge was very strong so we had to abort the first dive attempt because my buddy got separated from the group. On our next attempt we managed a swim around the steep boulder slope on the outside of the caldera, being buzzed by a sea lion that was busy hunting a school of fish, parting it as it swam through.

 In the hazy deeper water we could just make out small manta rays and a couple of shy hammerhead sharks.

Due to the rough conditions, we headed back to another site in North Seymore channel for our second dive.
Here the dive guide found us some branching black coral and some electric blue nudibranchs on the rocks.



Nudibranch, or sea slug, about 2 cm long



and I found a handsome moray eel in his hole.
 

 - not so scary since they have to have theirmouths open to breath!

(These lovely photos I have borrowed  from the Scuba Iguana guide DVD since my camera was fogging up).

 

 

 

 

And we almost stumbled on a well camouflaged weed fish. Isn't he handsome! Can you spot his eyes and mouth?

 

The highlight for me was a field of little spotted garden eels, almost half a meter tall, that slid back into their sandy burrows as we swam towards them.

They must be the inspiration for Richard Scarey's Lowly Worm!

 

 

I enjoyed sneaking up on the rays, keeping well clear of their sharp tail.












We saw quite a few white-tipped sharks trying to sleep under ledges, until we distrubed them.

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Our safety stop was out in the channel in strong current which whizzed us along like a roller-coaster ride, until our boat came to pick us up.  We had a late lunch on the boat and headed for Puerto Ayura. The dive guides quickly put together their photos and videos they had made of the two groups diving so we could buy them, nice for those without cameras or ones that had flooded, foggy housings (like mine).

The DVDs have some good videos of the schools of fish and especially the sharks as they swam out from under their ledges, but unfortunately they are too big to download - you will have to see them next ime you visit.