4th Day: Jon's Tunnel

Jon's Tunnel
We were alerted in advance by Tina and Jim, a friendly San Diegan couple, that this was a favorite dive of theirs, as they dove it on their honeymoon more than a decade before. This was an awesome dive and my favorite dive in Fiji thus far.

We started out at a ship wreck in 80' of water. The ship was covered in soft coral. Buried in a hatch one story below deck was a green moray eel whose body was about as thick as a woman's waist. I had heard about eels taking off peoples' fingers, so I did not approach. But, I heard later a lady on our boat did get close, but purely by accident. She was filming the machinery inside the hatch before someone alerted her to the fact that the ginormous eel was right at her fin tips.

There was a metal grillework on the stern of the wreck heavily hung with sea fans. Perhaps one of my favorite diving moments ever was swimming upside down underneath the sea fans. With every inhale I drifted up closer to the fans. With every exhale, I drifted down. On the same dive, elsewhere, I saw a diver lying down on the sand blowing donut bubbles. Sometimes the best part about diving is just being silly underwater.

We then headed to some bommies in the distance where there was a deep tunnel swim through. Excellent buoyancy was definitely required in this 20 ft long overhead environment that was heavily inhabited by soft corals and sea fans.

At the end of the dive, we hovered over the top of the bommie. My computer was edging midway through the yellow caution zone but I kept staying behind in this gaily colored world.

Dive 172# - Jon's Tunnel
Mina: 73 ft., 1:04 min.
Mark: 71 ft., 0:54 min.
Other sights:
-Black lionfish
-Fluted Giant Clams
-Clown Triggerfish
-A pair of Pennant Bannerfish
-Greasy grouper
-Map Puffer

Mark at Turtle Head

Flurry of Life at Turtle Head

Dive #173 - Turtle Head
Mina: 62', 1:02 min
Mark: 62', 1:02 min
-Sunset wrasse
-Sharksucker (free swimming)
-2 foot long Pineapple sea cucumber the width of my calf
-A pair of Regal angelfish that evaded pictures

-Longnose hawkfish
-Dwarf hawkfish
-Moorish Idols
-Longnose Butterflyfish
-Sleeping octopus in a crack
-8 Orangespine Unicornfish

Juvenile Lion Fish on Night Dive

Dive #174 - Ridge Reef (night dive)
Mina: 65', 1:05 minutes
Mark: 62', 1:01 minutes
-Sleeping porcupine fish that kept bumping it's face into rocks
-Cornet fish?
-Baby lionfish
-Two hermit crabs that were fighting over a larger shell
-Sleeping parrot fish inside cages of antler coral- you wonder how they got there.
-Upside-down jelly that lifted off from the sand when bothered
-Crab
-Crown of thorns
-Large sea urchins the size of bowling balls


-- Post From My iPhone