Dive 1 : Paradise Canyons
Not too long into the dive, Rob pointed out a nudibranch (Glossodoris sedna) to me! I was very excited, since I have never seen a nudibranch in the Caribbean before. It was very pretty, and it was out in the open and in fine form – it’s gill plume was very plumy. While he was setting up a shot, I found a second of the same kind on the same rock. It’s gill plume was curled up and it’s rhinophores were under something, so it wasn’t quite as wonderful looking. We continued on, and I was really trying to find some shrimp for him to shoot. I was looking for barrel sponges, since they seem to congregate around those. I found a couple that were tucked way under overhangs. I also found a ton of arrow crabs for Rob, since they were pretty easy to find near crinoids. At some point, I was hanging around while Rob was taking a picture of something, and I saw something close out of the corner of my eye, like a scallop or something. I looked into the crack where it was, and saw a toothy grin. It was a large-eye toadfish, which I have never seen before! It was so cool looking. I pointed it out to Rob, who tried to take some pictures. By that point, the fish had retreated a bit more (not so into the focus light) into its hole. Rob gave up, then a minute later, signalled that he wanted to go back and try again :) After a while, we moved along, and 15 feet down the reef, Rob found another one!
I was very excited to see the nudibranchs. When I told Rob afterwards how excited I was, he asked if I was going to email my man crush about it right away :) I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out who he was referring to. The toadfish were really neat too. The other people on the boat had seen a couple the day before at Turneffe, and apparently they are not very commonly seen at Ambergris.
Dive 2 : Mosquito Canyons
My light wouldn’t come on at the beginning of this dive, which was a big bummer. I felt pretty useless at finding macro critters without the light (my backup was completely useless in such bright conditions). Boohoo. I finally did find a coral banded shrimp that was reasonably out on a barrel sponge, but it was still at a pretty weird angle, so I don’t think Rob got any good shots of it. Oh well. Then near the end of the dive, Rob found a flamingo tongue! It had almost no spots, so it was pretty funny looking. Then I found another one, with more spots, on the same gorgonian. A minute later, Rob found another one on another nearby gorgonian (the third one was the most beautiful of the three, but the gorgonian it was on looked pretty sickly). So Rob did find something fun to take macro shots of.
In case any one is worried (ahem, Ben), my light is actually fine. I guess the battery wasn’t charged properly. Can’t trust the old ball and chain to do anything right…
We headed downtown in the later afternoon to look at the souvenir shops, since I knew that Platypus Rex would have a temper tantrum if I didn’t get her a present. We also got some T-shirts for ourselves. Then we went to BCs for some drinks and to kill some time, since we weren’t quite hungry yet. For dinner, we went to Ambergris Delight, which was delightful. I had blackened shrimp kebabs and a margarita. Rob had barbecued chicken (because he is boring) and a tasty pina colada (because he is girly).
On Saturday morning, we went to Estel’s for breakfast. I had French toast, which was good, but not as good as the stellar French toast at Pepper Bite’s.
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