Day 13: Saturday, January 25, 2014

If I spent 80% of yesterday sitting at my desk, I spent 80% of today in the water diving.  We did a record three dives in one day, with the day going as follows:

1. Wake up/Breakfast
2. Dive
3. Lunch
4. Dive
5. Nap/Dinner
7. Dive

The second dive after lunch wasn't the best since the surge was up and the visibility was pretty low. But the dive after dinner more than made up for that because it was our first night dive. It took some serious self pep-talking to get myself down to the waterfront considering the cold night air and the general lack of sun, but once we were in the water, it was amazing. Other than the beam of our flashlights, everything was pitch black in the water. A couple of times, I would sweep my flashlight to my side only to find a ray swimming by my side. We also ran into a leopard shark and a ton of spiny lobster.

Despite the lobster looking semi-terrifying at night, I tried to catch a few- unsuccessfully. I can't tell if it was because they're ridiculously fast or because I would always slightly hesitate right before I grabbed at them (it's considerably freaky to grab at a lobster, especially since it looks ends up looking like a mini sea-monster in the flashlight beam). Probably some combination of both.

Here's some photos from the first two dives:

Gearing up for the morning dive; I'm in the black wetsuit in the back

Afternoon dive; I'm in the foreground of the photo

Overall, an exhausting but satisfying day.