First weekend in April Destin dive report.

[Puffer Fish]

Well the water is warming faster than normal... so am out of the dry suit...

Sat was a couple of small reefs (as we only had three divers on the boat), one of which I don't remember ever being on.

Grey snapper were everywhere...

This video shows how they are effected by divers... when I first got to the spot, there were fish all over the place, and then as another diver approached, they started to hid...but the ones on the other side did nothing.

Seems that about 20 ft away will get them to bolt unless one is very quiet (I was around 5 ft from them at the time.

Sadly I missed most of them going into the hole

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/data/500/grey_snapper.wmv

Video is really crappy because I downsized it to the wrong format for SB and then converted it to WMV....way too much processing.

A spearer could have spent the whole dive sitting in one spot.

There were several 2 ft and bigger ones on the other side, hiding in holes.

Took a few more pictures... but this was the weekend for testing out a new macro lens... so what comes next is the results of that.

 

[Puffer Fish]

The next day was whitehill and the liberty ship....

Love that dive, but now we had a full boat.. and that means scared fish.

There were several huge stingrays around, but with a macro lens, this was the best I could do:

The liberty ship was covered with bat fish, outside in the sand... don't have a clue what the meeting was all about.

pretty easy to tell those are pink lipped batfish.

Frog fish and nudi's were everywhere..

As were scorpion fish

And a couple other shots of common fish:

 

[Puffer Fish]

For the first time, I finally saw a arrowhead crab with eggs...

Well, I think that is eggs.. not really sure.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Great fun diving, even if the vis could have been a lot better.

 

[jhayes75]

Awesome pics as usual. I have yet to photo a nudi.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Awesome pics as usual. I have yet to photo a nudi.

I took pictures of three different ones.. just like the position on that one the best... its like frog fish, seeing the first one is difficult.. after that, not seeing them is hard...

 

[Dave C]

Really liked the flounder pic. Although this is a common shot, yours is exceptional.

 

[GLENFWB]

I have yet to get a picture of a nudi also. The sad thing is last year after a dive with Jim, he asked me if I got a picture of the nudi's! I couldn't believe he got some pictures of a nudi and I totally missed seeing one.

Hey Jim, next time we dive...the signal for seeing a nudi is when you start peeling off your wetsuit underwater!!

Oh yeah, it goes without saying...Great Pictures!

Awesome pics as usual. I have yet to photo a nudi.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Really liked the flounder pic. Although this is a common shot, yours is exceptional.

Thanks Dave... yea I take pictures of them only because it is almost impossible to get one that looks nice... arrowhead crabs are the same...I have exactly one nice image of one..after taking several thousand.

I think if I was using my larger strobes, I could make the eyes glow more.. need to try that next time.

 

[Puffer Fish]

I have yet to get a picture of a nudi also. The sad thing is last year after a dive with Jim, he asked me if I got a picture of the nudi's! I couldn't believe he got some pictures of a nudi and I totally missed seeing one.

Hey Jim, next time we dive...the signal for seeing a nudi is when you start peeling off your wetsuit underwater!!

Oh yeah, it goes without saying...Great Pictures!

Thanks Glenn.

I believe that was the dive this was taken on:

Would you like me to catch some of them and put them in an aquarium for you? They don't move that fast, so it should be easy.

How about I just draw a picture of one with my dive knife on your arm, as the suit thing is not going to happen.

They are actually really hard to see. Candy cane shrimp and pipefish are even harder to see. Now, I rarely make a dive without seeing several Nudi's, but those others are still a bit hard.