What a wonderful December we have had - the weather was hot and sunny, with a few rainy days to cool things down a bit. Sea conditions were excellent for most of the month with visibility averaging at around 18-20m and often sitting at 25-30m. We had one bad spell mid-month when for five days, we experienced dramatic thermoclines and the visibility dropped to 8m. Not sure where that came from but we were all glad to see it go - conditions returned to normal and water temperatures were back up to 26-27 degrees Celsius.
Father Christmas certainly knew where to find us: in the ocean! We were spoilt with many wonderful gifts this December.
There were lots of turtle sightings at Aerial Reef; one was when Luca was enjoying the first dive of his PADI Open Water Course. We were busy looking at some clownfish in an anemone when we saw a loggerhead turtle swimming slowly in our direction. It came closer and closer, and it looked as if it had not seen us at all. We stayed right where we were and eventually it saw us and turned away, only to do a full circle and come back to see us again - we looked at one another and had a good chuckle.
Josh was also doing his first open water dive when he got to stroke a hawksbill turtle. It was munching away on the reef and almost swam right into Josh, so he reached down and gave it a tickle. The turtle did not even flinch, in fact I think the turtle enjoyed it!
An unusual turtle sighting was of a loggerhead that had a satellite transponder stuck to its back; it was stuck on with bright blue glue, so it could be seen from far away (this turtle was seen at Elusive a couple of days earlier). Another wonderful turtle sighting at Aerial was a brief and frantic chase to see a leatherback turtle. Judy saw a big black shape across the sand and swam closer to have a look at what it was. When she realised it was a leatherback, she signalled frantically to everyone and they swam to catch a fleeting glimpse as it headed off out to sea.
Other great sightings at Aerial this month included a leopard shark resting on the sand at the edge of the reef, a guitarfish that actually followed us for the entire dive -every time we looked across the sand, there it was, and two manta rays which also seemed to follow us along the reef - we first saw them on the northern end and then later as we had crossed to the southern section they came in time and again, circling and sweeping along the sand, whilst feeding. We watched them even at our safety stop and we did not want to get out of the water.
We had a magical dive at Brewers Garden - with 30m visibility, fish everywhere, a spotted eagle ray, a big school of about 15 bull rays and four bottlenose dolphins! We even got to snorkel with the same four dolphins after the dive; they were just hanging around in no rush to go anywhere.
Elusive was also magical this month with sightings of a green turtle, a female loggerhead turtle who was tagged, crayfish, schools of snappers, six huge honeycomb eels, paperfish, black-cheek eels, two blue-spotted rays and firefish all over the reef, some hiding under ledges, some out swimming across the sand - in one area there were six of them all in a row - and this was all on one dive. Just as we thought that it couldn't get any better, as we were doing our safety stop I looked down and saw a manta ray, we hung there and watched it and then another one came across the sand and joined up with it before they both swam away together. Lynette, from Singapore, said it was the best dive she has ever done.
The following day produced more gifts for the divers in the form of two whalesharks! The first one was about five metres in length and while everyone was snorkelling with it, Clive spotted a second one that was about eight metres in length. They were crossing paths and everyone got to see them both.
Snorkellers enjoying Ocean Experience trips were also spoilt with opportunities to snorkel with bottlenose dolphins, a manta ray, whalesharks, white tip sharks, grey reef sharks, potato bass, a free-swimming honeycomb eel and not forgetting all the wonderful fish life.
One of the most memorable dives of the month was on the 31st - the sea was flat, warm and the visibility was about 20m. We went to Pineapple Reef and as we worked our way along, Catherine signalled that she had seen a shark. We all looked around and saw the grey reef shark... but not just one - there ended up being three of them! We were surrounded by slinger, three sharks, three potato bass and a huge honeycomb eel that was free swimming. We did not know where to look! The eel had been injured and by the bite marks it looked like it had been fighting with another honeycomb eel. It was swimming along, looking for a good hiding place and as it did, the potato bass were hot on its heels, with the sharks circling on the outskirts trying to see what all the commotion was about. We just sat and watched this action-packed show, we could not have asked for a better last dive of the year!
Congratulations to the following divers:
Kombo Magara, Daniel, Benjamin and Andrew Sparks, Charles and Jaques Celliers, Anthony Wilton, Tania Temlett, Byron Losch, Michela Gioia, Gunnar Wach, Hannah Rosling, Rolene and Florian Bauer for completing their PADI Discover Scuba Diving Course.
Luca Buzak, Neil and Jason Lumsden, Craig Oehley, Daniella Ellis, Josh Potgieter and Andy Openshaw for completing their PADI Open Water Course.
Gina Houston for completing her PADI Advanced Course.
Yours in diving
Darryl, Clive, Michelle
The Rocktail Dive Team
