Everything is bigger!

My first two days of diving have been great! I feel like I'm back in Saudi diving in the Red Sea, only all the fish are bigger and act like they know me. They will swim right up to you as if to say, " Crystal! You finely made it! Let me show you around."
The only thing that isn't big are the sharks. I've seen at least one white tip each dive, but they are all relatively small. Some of the highlights have been lots of Sea Turtles, I even got close enough to pet one while he was busy eating. And I saw one that was big, about 3-4 feet down the back of his shell. The giant clams are giant too, around 5 ft across, I keep worrying that I might loose a fin when I swim by! Something new for me is all the sea cucumbers. I'm used to seeing the small black ones, but these are about 2 ft long and some are colorful, some are covered with spikes and some look like rock.

There is of course all the usual stuff, butterfly fish, angel fish, trigger fish, surgeon fish, etc. There are really a lot of fish, a couple of times I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium because the fish were that close to me and that dense. I also saw a lion fish today, and I've seen a lot of really big Napoleon fish. There was a cute dainty red star fish on my first dive and a few nudabranchs.

There's more diversity in coral than I've seen in a while - all the ones that I love to touch that close up, even the kind that turn rock hard. There's a lot of antler coral and a lot of different types of sponges. I've even seen some fire coral, which I've only seen in the Red Sea.

The water is a little cold...of course everything is metric here, so I'm diving in meters, watching my air in bar, and get water temps in c. They tell me the water is 22 degrees, what ever that means, and this time of the year it is usually 27, so it's cold even for here. But, I learned a great trick. If you put your wetsuit on in the hot shower it is first, easier to get on and then, once you get all zipped up you pull open the neck and fill yourself up with hot water. It's wonderful! You stay warm while you get your gear on and then when you jump in all your little crevices are already filled with warm water so you don't get that jolt of cold down your back!

I have another day of diving tomorrow on a different boat. I'll try to get some pictures to post.