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beautiful little nudibranch’s out at three pyramids.
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date: 24/2/2009
Author:Nick Brennan
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Weather: Overcast with extended periods of sunshine | Air Temp: 28°C | Wind: SE 20/30 knots | Water Temperature: 26°C | Water Visibility: ~ 20m | Sea State: Chop
The easterly winds made conditions great out at second reef today. The green turtles were also reveling in the conditions showing up for all of the morning boats and leaving some fantastic memories for our guests.
The discover scuba dive group was fortunate to see Borris the friendly hammerhead shark again today. When he showed up guests were a little scared about being so close to a 12ft predator, so the instructor stayed in front of them knowing full well that it was harmless. When they climbed out of the water they said they couldn’t believe the size of it! Not bad for an introduction to diving that’s for sure. The other diving groups came across all sorts of interesting creatures out there including a big shovelnose shark and some beautiful little nudibranch’s out at three pyramids.
At fish feeding guests had a great time watching the fish, with one of the guests getting bothered by a brown damselfish that was protecting its territory. Brown damsel fish eat algae and have their own patch that they farm. They are very common fish with tiny teeth and when they bite it feels like somebody pinching you. The guest couldn’t believe that such a little fish could be brave enough to try and chase a human away and laughed at how funny it looked.
At Island Whispers guests enjoyed some nibble food before being informed of a little surprise staff had in stall for them. Halfway through island whispers everybody came down onto the beach in front of the bar to watch some turtle hatchlings run down to the water. Guests had a lot of great questions that our staff members were more than happy to answer. After the experience everybody was dead keen to come to the turtle trek later in the evening.
Jenni led the turtle trek and took guests to a nest that had hatched out during the middle of the day!! A lot of turtles had already emerged from the nest and as it was in behind the first dune where the hatchlings headed inland instead of towards the sea, Jenni processed the nest to count the eggs to see the hatching success rate. She found twelve little hatchlings still in the nest and while she was digging the nest out a little turtle dropped into the hole! Everybody was amazed because this meant that there was another nest close by that had also come up and the hatchling had been attracted over to the lights! After some time looking they discovered the sunken piece of sand where the turtles had emerged from and watched as more continued to come down and make their way to the water. It was a very special turtle trek with a situation that isn’t often encountered even by the experts and it left everybody glowing on the walk back to their rooms.
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hatchling - Jenni Fox
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