April 7, 2011

Thunder Reef was gorgeous this morning! Beautiful visibility! As we descended over the ledge a large Manta Ray swam slowly past us. That was a great way to start the dive! We dropped down to 130 feet to check out the forest of Wire Coral. The individual, green corals were standing straight up out of the bottom, shaped like long wires. Most of them were 3 to 4 feet high but some were taller than me! As we cruised up the slope we saw a Zebra Moray and a couple of harems of Flame Wrasses, with the males in their mating phase with their colorful fins out in full display. Up on top of the slope we found a large, gorgeous Leaf Scorpion fish that looked like white lace. Later we found octopus, more eels, and a Tiger Cowrey. As we ascended back to the boat a school of about 200 Raccoon Butterfly fish came swarming all around us. We all just grinned at each other.... NICE dive!