Day 77 - Fri, 13th dive, a bad day, nudibranch

It says in the PADI book that you will have good days and bad days. My 13th dive was not lucky! 

With a slight headache from the previous evening I knew I should not have dived but as the weather is so fantastic I wanted to get a bit of experience under my belt before the Advanced course begins next week. 

Dived at 1pm with Eveline and Max. Both are only a little more experienced than me. We dived from the middle boat, which meant doing a roll-back entry into the water. My first and it was fine, comparatively easy.  I was carrying my camera and a training slate for Fish ID. My problem was that I was not carrying enough weight. I had trouble controlling my buoyancy and could not get low enough to see some of the fish we spotted, including another lovely blue spotted ray. Eveline borrowed my camera to take this photo, while I flailed about above her!

A blue-spotted ray, hiding under a reef ledge, on the sandy bottom.

My talisman.

Giant clam. They come in all colours and are actually pretty spectacular.

Long beaked coral fish again.

Ironically I think I got some of my better photos on this dive, the third dive I had my camera with me (excluding house reef), due to the sun.

My problems were compounded by my mask, which was leaking, meaning I had to keep stopping in order to clear it. I prefer to do this in a vertical position, so I lost whatever ground I'd gained on the buoyancy front. Eventually I just bobbed up to the surface from 9m down. Fortunately Eveline had an extra weight.  We  had another 15 mins so we descended again and there was a bit of an improvement for me. 

Scorpion fish. And corner of training slate.

We saw a scorpion fish again (extremely poisonous) and a nudibranch, a type of colourful sea slug that they are doing surveys on here. One of the girls, Nikki, is doing her thesis on them and is here for nine months. I did also see my Spadefish, like a talisman, suspended.

The small white patch is a nudibranch, superfamily: Porostomata, family: Phyllidiidae

Getting back into the middle boat was tough with all the gear and weights on! On return Eveline and Max dived on House reef (as everyone else had gone to the mainland) and I retired to my bungalow to be sick. I took Zomig afterwards which does seem to have helped however my hands are now bothering me, they are quite stiff and I'm not sure if it is the diving or the zomig. I've freaked myself out a bit.