Afternoon dive boat was me and 3 men – LOVE that ratio! Divemaster, boat captain and helper dude (he poured the hot tea for us when we returned). Jumped in and pain after 10 feet. But, that’s better than nothing and we were taking it very slowly. Started checking everything out (and that’s saying something) and after a while, my computer read 13 feet! Well, you know the rest of the story. Got down to about 37 feet a few feet down and one back up, which worked out fine weaving in and out of coral heads and exploring everywhere. My guide, Eddy, had a foot long, slender metal rod that he used to gently prod wildlife with, although he liked to put it into my hand and I preferred to watch and not aggravate the little fisheys. Anyway, again with the biodiversity…it made me think that this is what the word “teeming” was created to describe for sure. He picked up a starfish that was shaped like a round gourd (the only way I knew it was a starfish is that it had the five lines radiating out like someone had drawn them on). Then, he unravels his magnifying glass and has me hold it up so I can see a little thing about 3/8 inch long scurrying around. Later I found out this was a shrimp. Defined the word! Poked a couple of blue spotted stingrays and later found ac owtail stinrgay hiding in a little cave. I love discovering hidden treasures, it’s like a game. A ribbon eel protecting his little hole in the sand and lunging for the metal stick as we annoyed him. Floating over a two foot round coral head with some staghorn coral growing off the side, I looked into a 3 or 4 inch hole and saw something brown suddenly turn the same whitish color as the coral. Signaled Eddy and he brought the infamous stick. After some prodding, we confirmed it was a brown octopus, and he was way pissed at us for bothering him! Spitting sand at us and when we finally poked him from another side, he shot out of his hole and under the head of coral. Looking under to spot him, saw two really large shrimp, their long white antennae being the telltale markers. At one point, Eddy poked out a beautiful royal blue snapping shrimp – pretty as a picture! Then a little fish darted by along the sand: about 2 inches long, bright orange with a few white spots along the top ridge of its back, each one ringed in black. A yellowtail coris. Worth looking up, lemme tell you. I could go on and on, but will just say that anyone who isn’t a diver can skip this list (one of the few times I’ve gone back and pored through the fish book because so much that either I’m not familiar with, or looks familiar but different colors than I usually see): lion fish, babies and adults, blennies, damselfish, moorish idols, needlenose butterfly, rabbitfish, black spotted puffer, ribbon eel, black spotted moray, lizard fish, crocodile fish, jawfish, painted flutemouth, spotted male boxfish (one of my favorites), triggerfish (oh, those old things), regal angelfish and a variety of wrasses. Clowns are now like squirrels, they’re everywhere. The advantage of not going down to the 18 meters we might have otherwise is that the dive lasted about sixty two minutes. But, when I surfaced, as much pain as going down, dammit. Loved the dive, but could hardly hear all night and ears so uncomfortable I wanted my mommy! Anyway, no water tomorrow, need some healing time. But I’ll sleep dreaming of the fishes.