Wet Suit City

Man, did I ever find out why they call this Wet Suit City! I don't Even need to look in my logbook to remember this one. It was my first experience with fire coral. Funny that I had seen lots of fire coral in pictures, but I didn't realize it would be so small and innocent looking in real life. It took about 2 seconds after brushing my hand against it to realize, wow, this is probably fire coral! The pain wasn't as intense as getting a sea urchin spike in your hand, but it got my attention. The pain went away after about 15 minutes, and life was good again -- so wear your wet suit!!! Anyway, the dive was really neat. We went down to about a 100 feet since it was the first dive of the day. Sea fans, sponges, and moray eels. The best was the garden eels. Way cool creatures! I think I used up most of my air just laying there waiting for them to poke their little heads out of the sand. I gotta get a camera! There were a lot of Grunts in the area looking for handouts, too. They seemed pretty aggressive, maybe because this is a resort area and they are used to people handing out food. If you're gonna feed the fish, wear gloves, they will bite you to make you drop the food! We saw a great Spotted Drum in the shallows, and did our safety stop watching him flutter about. So, underwater, you will have a good time- guaranteed! This is a resort here, but we laid out on the beach after the dive anyway. I don't think they minded. There is a dive shop there, so you can get more tanks if you want to dive some more in the area. Also, there are boats overhead, since there is that small boat launch nearby, so listen for motor sounds and surface carefully. Dive-On, Dude!