Welcome to my Kosrae-Pohnpei blog - May 1 - May 20!

I hope you enjoy my blog about my solo trip to Kosrae and Pohnpei May 1st through May 20th.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Last dives on Kosrae - Thursday May 12th

Dive Fifteen 
Site: Eagle Ray Wall
Dive Buddy: Doug Beitz
Other divers: Rick Brooks
Duration: 62 minutes
Max Depth: 53 feet
Visibility: 70 feet
Outside temp: 78.6 degrees F
Water temp: range from 78.8 – 83.8 degrees F


We were on the north tip of the island for this dive on a sheer wall down…next stop – about 3000 feet below the surface. The viz was not good at 70 feet but was still a fantastic dive. Given the name, Eagle Ray Wall, I was hoping that at last I would see one or more of those magnificent creatures. It was not to be but I did spot a SHARK! A white tip reef shark cruising about 30 feet below through the coral. I haven’t seen once since Hawaii and look forward to more on Pohnpei where the sightings hopefully will be more frequent. There were reports from Chinese fisherman that three tiger sharks followed their boat into dry dock here on Kosrae but we weren’t lucky enough to see them. Probably a blown out of proportion story anyway. Also saw many clown fish, lion fish, lizard-fish, nudibranch, and puffer-fish.......the lighting is bad on this but this is me gliding towards a puffer.........



Saw two massive Napolean Wrasse that seemed as large as me and was actually probably bigger – no kidding. Those things can push 300-400 pounds. (And no, I’m nowhere near that!)

Dive Sixteen
Site: Buoy 35a
Dive Buddy: Doug Beitz
Other divers: Rick Brooks
Duration: 67 minutes
Max Depth: 46 feet
Visibility: 90 feet
Outside temp: 83.1 degrees F
Water temp: range from 81.0 – 84.6 degrees F

I felt sad when hopping in the water as this was my last dive on Kosrae but God blessed us with wonderful viz at about 90+ feet. It was a wonderful dive – I kind of floated above the coral trying to take it all in not knowing if I’ll ever be able to dive this fantastic island again. Here is a shot to show  you the size of some of this stuff.  Doug's camera is not sophisticated enough to capture coral very good as you'd need about a $20K camera with wide angle lens and huge strobes..........


The usual suspects were down there swimming along with us as we cruised the reef. I took notice of some of the more common and smaller reef fish that we saw on a daily basis and took in their vibrant colors along with other trigger fish, clown fish, various wrasse, puffers, etc., etc. I didn’t want the dive to end and I think perhaps Doug sensed that as we approached the buoy – I didn’t want to look at him as I knew he’d give me the safety stop signal but finally I gave him the signal and we went up as I was getting near red on air. It really was tough.  I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to dive Walung but I guess that means I’ll just have to come back.

I then invited Rick to dinner at Bullys down the road and we had a nice dinner talking about the day’s diving and his travels, etc. He ordered mangrove crab. I think it took them an hour to prepare it (or maybe they went out and killed one) and Rick an hour to eat it! It was all good though – nothing to come back to anyway except blogging which was down the last two nights which is why I finally just got to this one.

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