Lewie Discovers The Wonder of Turtles!

I took Lewie out for his first two Open Water dives Sunday afternoon. He had been certified with NAUI years ago, but hadn't done any diving since. Because I will be putting him all the way through Divemaster, I figured it would be a good idea to just have him go ahead and take the Open Water course over again to reacquainte him with all the skills and get him comfortable underwater again. I took him to Lau Lau for his first two Open Water dives because I think there's something absolutely magical about seeing turtles on dives. Lewie got to spend some quality time with a couple green sea turtles and just watch them eating the growth on the rocks. After being slightly nervous at the beginning of the dive, you could just watch him visibly relax and start to really enjoy himself underwater.
Yup, you really can get this close to the turtles and just observe them, they don't seem to mind at all as long as you don't try to touch them or make any fast or threatening moves. Even after thousands and thousands of dives, and spending thousands of hours with turtles, I still get excited every time I see one and get to spend some time with it.
Kelli has been using my first underwater camera as she hones her underwater photography skills, and I'd say she's doing an awesome job! Especially considering that the camera no longer has its flash diffuser, and that it doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. I can't wait to see the kind of shots she comes up with when she gets her new camera this week. And of course I'm very excited to be getting a new camera myself this week, so there should be some great pictures coming very soon.

I was looking under a few rocks on the way back in and I discovered this live Textile Cone mostly buried in the dirt. This is the 3rd most deadly cone shell in the world. It's very beautiful but very deadly, which is why I'm carefully holding it by the base end, and have the point end pointing away from me. I put him back after Kelli took a picture of it, and after she was giving me one of those looks asking what the heck I think I'm doing. We had a great weekend of diving, managing to get in 5 dives for the weekend, which puts me just shy of 300 for the year, not a bad year at all! I think Lewie is totally hooked on diving now, and I keep getting new students lined up every day. I may have to clone myself before too long.

200 Dives For The Year!

My goal this year was to hit 200 dives for the year once again. Now I know that to most dive industry professionals, that's no big thing, many of them will hit 400, 500 or 600 dives a year. But I'm not a dive industry professional, well not yet anyway. I managed to get all those dives in by October 5th as just another weekend diver with a normal day job. Now you may not think that 200 dives in a year is a big deal, but when you realize how many dives that adds up to every weekend, it shows that you pretty much lived under water on the weekends. My new goal is to hit 250 for the year now, it will be the first time I've ever accomplished that, and I think the goal is fairly achievable. I had to get in 7 dives this last weekend, in order for #200 to be with my great friend Hozumi and her last dive on Saipan.

The picture above was of a green sea turtle we saw at Lau Lau Sunday morning. He was having breakfast and just didn't seem to care if we were there or not. He let us take all the pictures we wanted and posed graciously. After posing for that picture, I decided to borrow the camera from Kelli for a second and take a couple pictures of the turtle myself.

I always love gazing into a turtles eyes, they are just so soft and full of personality. This guy was very accommodating about having me that close to him, didn't seem to mind at all. So I snapped a few pictures and then let him get back to his breakfast. This was definitely one of the coolest turtle encounters I've had in a very long time though.Yup, these couple pictures convinced me that I really need to start saving up to replace my underwater camera though. I miss capturing these moments on the camera and then being able to share them. Kelli took a picture of Hozumi and I together on this my 200th dive of the year and her last dive on Saipan. It was a great dive, and Hozumi really seemed to enjoy herself and just soak everything in one last time. I will really miss taking her out diving occasionally and watching her face light up when she sees a turtle, or watching her recoil in horror as I hold a sea cucumber out to her. Thanks for sharing that dive with me Hozumi, you will be greatly missed!