auchmeddan

We had our first dive from Wyndham on Saturday, formally Sonesta where we used to dive with Fantasea. To ensure a parking spot and pay our annual membership we turned up really early. This worked in our favour as we got our preferred spot at the entry point to the water for a change. It’s been a while since we’ve dived from here as the Hurricane in 2003 blew away the dock. Rather than build an expensive new wooden dock Blue Water have opted to build a make shift floating walkway from the beach to the boat. Not a bad idea but, with my sea legs I can see myself falling in at some point, especially seeing as how I’m laden down with heavy dive gear.

On Saturday we went to Killa Puffa Reef. It’s a massive reef that you swim round is probably the best way to describe it. Never been there before and seeing as how we are advanced open water certified, its time to do our own navigating. Got some general directions from Michael the Boat Captain and off we went. Followed the anchor line to the bottom where the visibility was pretty bad. As per his instructions headed north from there and found the reef. There wasn’t a lot of fish but maybe it was just that we couldn’t see them, everything was pretty blurry, especially when the sun wasn’t out.

We swam around, very slowly due to the strong current. Although there wasn’t much to see we saw a massive Hogfish of which Dave got a pretty good photo. This was probably the highlight of the Dive for Dave but for me it was finding the anchor line.

At about 25mins into our Dive Dave asked if I knew where the boat was. I figured that we’ll come back to our starting point and there will be the anchor. Only problem is reef all looks the same, time for me to use my compass. If we came out going north we have to head back south. At around 40 mins I started turning out from the reef and checking my compass. At one point I figured we must be close so I headed out to look for the anchor line with Dave. Much to my disappointment it wasn’t there but not to be discouraged I stayed out from the reef while Dave swam in closer to it. It had to be here and I knew you couldn’t see it from the reef. After only a couple of strokes I saw it. Made my entire Dive and Dave got a photo of me holding it. Such a small thing but I felt a great sense of achievement. Apart from a Constellation dive a year or so ago this is the first dive where we’ve not had to surface to find the boat. Whoo hoooo!

Didn’t fair so well on Sunday’s dive but, there’s always next week.

Jules

Pics below are the Hogfish, and me holding the Anchor line!

We’ve had a water shortage here the last few weeks. It’s quite serious, and we’re having to do everything we can to save water - including only flushing the toilet when it’s absolutely necessary. For the past 3 weeks or so We’ve both been showering at work, to save what’s left of the water in the tank at home. It’s a real pain, and has been playing on both our nerves a bit.

It got worse
We both woke up around 3.05AM, in the early hours of Thursday morning. It was strangely quiet in the house, and after a few seconds we both realised the air-conditioner wasn’t running. I turned on my flashlight, and checked the ceiling fan - it had almost stopped turning.

“Did you pay the bill?” Jules asked me, rather grumpily.

I snorted a laugh and said something along the lines of “They don’t turn up at 3AM on stealth missions to cut off the power!” After checking the house, I confirmed we had no power at all. I didn’t look like the neighbours had any either.

As I headed into work the next morning, I stopped at the Gas Station down the road to get gas for my bike, as I was getting very low. There were cars parked and people huddled around talking, but none of the pumps were working. I fugured I had about enough gas to get me into town, or at least to the next Gas Station.

When I got to Barnes corner I stopped the bike and stared over at Hamilton. There was a giant black cloud pouring into the sky. When I saw it, I knew it had to be the Electricity plant, but I kept heading into town anyway (I really don’t know why). Every Gas Station I passed was Chaos. People were queueing, getting impatient and grumpy, but they weren’t getting any Gas. I drove Harbour Road and as I got closer to town the view kept getting worse and worse. There was no power anywhere. It was an island-wide blackout.

It turns out that one of the switching stations caught fire/blew up/whatever around 3:05AM, and burned until sometime around 10am. My office was in total darkness (it’s in a basement, so it’s like walking into an underground cavern just now).

I ended up sitting on the patio yesterday drinking beer with a friend, and later boiled water on the barbecue so we could eat a Pot Noodle for dinner. I ended up boiling eggs on the BBQ shortly afterwards, so I could get breakfast this morning.

No Water. No Electricity. Welcome to Paradise

I said to Jules last night - “you know what I’d really like for my Birthday? Water and Electricity”.

We got power back at home a couple of hours ago. It’s been raining down here for the last 3 hours or so.

I guess Birthday wishes do come true sometimes!

The Bait ball is a bit smaller than it was a few weeks ago, but most of the fish have been forced down to the cave/swim through at the site, packing the area tight with fish!

When we got to the swim-through, Jules gave me a “you go first” look, so I took the lead. I got a little bit confused when I entered it as I couldn’t really see any light from the other side. As my eyes adjusted I started to notice snapper lurking in the dark and then realised I couldn’t see because of the bait-ball that had been forced down inside the cave. As I edged through the swirling cloud of fish I could see a lot of snapper in the cave - occasionaly barging through the smaller fish and swimming very close to me.

When we edged out the other side, we saw a lot of snapper, Bar-jacks, Goat Fish, Butterfly fish, Wrasse - practically any sort of local fish you could think of seemed to have congregated here (the larger ones undoubtedly for an easy meal). We saw a few large (and I do mean LARGE) Grouper, and then as the Jacks charged the bait ball and it thinned before us I saw a very distinctive shape under an overhang in the reef. I grabbed Jules, pointed it out, and we both swam over to get our first up-close look at a Lion Fish in Bermuda’s waters.
I know the fish doesn’t belong (and shouldn’t be) here but it was a thrill to see it anyway. They really are very beautiful to look at, and are pretty shy.

We went through the swim through and back over the top of the cut twice, and just marvelled at the number of fish species we saw.

We had already seen a beautiful Blue Parrotfish earlier - easily the Blue-est one we’ve ever seen, but the variety of fish here blew that away! On top of what we had already seen we could add Trumpet-fish (lots of them!), Juvenile Boxfish about 1-1.5 inches in size, but I can’t identify the species), Parrotfish, Porgys, Sand TileFish. The only fish that was noticeable by it’s absence was Great Barracuda - I was really surprised not to see any at the bait ball.

In terms of seeing the local fish, this was one of the best dives we have had here. Unfortunately, due to particles in the water and the available light, I had a few problems with the camera exposure. I would have loved to have gotten a good photo of the Lion Fish, but it started heading for cover as soon as it saw us.

I’ve put a couple of photos below anyway of the Lion Fish.

The Photos below are a Trumpetfish, and some Soap Fish.