03 March - Grouper Dive

Saturday 3rd of March saw us repeating the dive that we did just before our holiday off island. On the previous occasion I had forgotten our BCs, the underwater camera and the current was about 4 knots. It was never going to be worse than that this time. When we arrived there was a bit of surface wind and the current was definately there. Luckily it wasn't as strong as last time. Straight down to 35 metres for me. I had the camera and I was determined to get some photos of these awesome fish this time. They were there in numbers once again and at that depth I was pretty much in the middle of them. Fantastic. Their colouring obviously helps them blend in to their surroundings which makes taking a great photo a little difficult but I managed enough 'okay' photos to show you what we saw.

Saw this one on the way down. The first of our two dives had about 3 knots of current that was making the water a little murky, but still great in comparison to most dive spots in the world.

Nic is really getting the hang of diving now. The rest of the group stayed at about 20-25 metres on the first dive.

Kind of hard to make out, but there is probably about five or six 30-50kg grouper in this photo. They all come to this part of the island for about a six week period each year to spawn. Last year there was reports of two monsters estimated at 200kgs each. That would have been a sight to see.

The first dive was only about 30 minutes long as you really go through the gas at that depth. We waited an hour, had some lunch and them suited up and went again. Luckily (we planned this way) the tide was on the change and we had minimal current. The water really cleared up and made the second dive one of the best dives we have done on Pohnpei. We followed the bouy line down and I found these two and the clam right beside the mooring point.

Soft corals aren't really prominent in Pohnpei but when you find them they are magnificent.

Big Mumma just resting her fat belly on the coral. Must hard work doing all this spawning.

Clear as a bell. These guys were at least 30 metres in front of me. Great diving conditions.

I decided to just sit in one place and see if they would approach me. Well it worked, kind of. I got close enough for some better photos if nothing else.

Another soft coral. The variety of things to see on one dive here is amazing.

The ever present pacific clams.

Out Pohnpean boat driver, Jerry, came down to check out the action. They grow up spear fishing and Jerry didn't have any problem at all coming down to 15 metres.

Nic and Brenda doing a decompression stop after another plus 30 metre dive.

Gradually getting through our bucket-list of things to do on Pohnpei.