mercury retrograde
started having electronic gear problems today... my dive computer started flashing a low battery signal and this computer's been acting up a bit - think it might be overheating. gotta back these entries up onto the ipod or something that is relatively easy to retrieve data from. as long as everything can hold out until i hit land i'll be happy but "que serĂ¡, serĂ¡", i suppose. (* note: my computer totally crashed on this day and would not startup at all until the 26th)
the first dive today at panetone was pretty much more of the same as yesterday. vis not too great - at least by maldivian standards - not a whole lot to see other than a big grey reef shark that was circling the reef below us (~7m) looking for breakfast.
we headed further south into the ari atoll to rangali madivaru (the manta point of the ari atoll) no mantas but what an epic drift dive. current must've been going at about 4-5 knots that just swept us along this deep coral wall - effortless unless you made a pitiful atempt to swim against it. it literally felt like you were flying.
we then headed for the southern tip of the ari atoll to a place called maamigili beyru - a place that ayaa said was know for it's whale shark sightings. we got to the site jumped in and about 15 minutes into the dive ayaa started shaking his underwater shaker to get our attention and took off into the slowish current pointing ahead of him... his excitement was tangible and when we saw what the cause was we understood... swimming at about 7m down was a juvenile whale shark. maybe 5 or 6 m long. it took all of our effort just to catch up with the thing that was just gliding along effortlessly. i swear i've never swum that hard in all my life and i was pretty winded once i caught up to it but what a spectacular sight. we seriously broke every rule in the book just trying to catch up with this thing - ascending too fast, breathing too hard, etc. but it was worth it. for a little while i got to swim alongside it's massive tail fin. and i admit, i had to touch it... just briefly with one finger - it was smooth and rubbery. man, what an experience.
we all were so tired from trying to keep up that we had to let it swim on. we followed the current out into the blue and a little bit deeper and who should be there but a second whale shark! this one was massive, no idea really but my guess was somewhere around 10 meters. must've been the littler one's mother or something. anyhow this one kept it's distance. preferring to open it's enormous mouth and feed far away from us. at one point it turned and started heading toward us but then banked and swam away. un-fucking-real. as you can guess, many high fives were exchanged and the feeling among us was electric.
we then headed north about 2 hours and did a sunset dive at a place called dhiguraa near a local island called dhangethi - which we were to visit later that night. nice dive site... 2 huge overhangs, a big puffed out lion fish, a huge napoleon wrasse (~2m) and a giant grouper. bruce joked that we could stop diving now since we'd seen the "big 5" of diving - hammerheads, mantas, whale sharks, giant grouper, and napoleon wrasse. cha... as if.
dhangethi was a nice little village island... did a little shopping... all of the shop keepers asking me to come into their store "hello, good evening mister. please come into my store. just for a look." - priceless. the evening call to prayer was the capper on a pretty great day. allah u akbar. indeed.
the first dive today at panetone was pretty much more of the same as yesterday. vis not too great - at least by maldivian standards - not a whole lot to see other than a big grey reef shark that was circling the reef below us (~7m) looking for breakfast.
we headed further south into the ari atoll to rangali madivaru (the manta point of the ari atoll) no mantas but what an epic drift dive. current must've been going at about 4-5 knots that just swept us along this deep coral wall - effortless unless you made a pitiful atempt to swim against it. it literally felt like you were flying.
we then headed for the southern tip of the ari atoll to a place called maamigili beyru - a place that ayaa said was know for it's whale shark sightings. we got to the site jumped in and about 15 minutes into the dive ayaa started shaking his underwater shaker to get our attention and took off into the slowish current pointing ahead of him... his excitement was tangible and when we saw what the cause was we understood... swimming at about 7m down was a juvenile whale shark. maybe 5 or 6 m long. it took all of our effort just to catch up with the thing that was just gliding along effortlessly. i swear i've never swum that hard in all my life and i was pretty winded once i caught up to it but what a spectacular sight. we seriously broke every rule in the book just trying to catch up with this thing - ascending too fast, breathing too hard, etc. but it was worth it. for a little while i got to swim alongside it's massive tail fin. and i admit, i had to touch it... just briefly with one finger - it was smooth and rubbery. man, what an experience.
we all were so tired from trying to keep up that we had to let it swim on. we followed the current out into the blue and a little bit deeper and who should be there but a second whale shark! this one was massive, no idea really but my guess was somewhere around 10 meters. must've been the littler one's mother or something. anyhow this one kept it's distance. preferring to open it's enormous mouth and feed far away from us. at one point it turned and started heading toward us but then banked and swam away. un-fucking-real. as you can guess, many high fives were exchanged and the feeling among us was electric.
we then headed north about 2 hours and did a sunset dive at a place called dhiguraa near a local island called dhangethi - which we were to visit later that night. nice dive site... 2 huge overhangs, a big puffed out lion fish, a huge napoleon wrasse (~2m) and a giant grouper. bruce joked that we could stop diving now since we'd seen the "big 5" of diving - hammerheads, mantas, whale sharks, giant grouper, and napoleon wrasse. cha... as if.
dhangethi was a nice little village island... did a little shopping... all of the shop keepers asking me to come into their store "hello, good evening mister. please come into my store. just for a look." - priceless. the evening call to prayer was the capper on a pretty great day. allah u akbar. indeed.
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