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It was the last dive of the day and as the dive in the morning was a little dull I wasn't expecting anything spectacular. I was completely wrong to assume this... It was a wall dive, so the anticipation was a little more than usual. We descended to 12m, then reached the drop off and started making our way down. It was quite dark and not much could be seen without a torch, in the holes. I looked down to about 35m and saw a big grouper (it was a bit out of reach). As we looked up to the top of the wall we saw a massive shoal of Jacks, followed by more Groupers. The Jacks kept their distance. Suddenly a shoal of a smaller species of Barracuda started circling round us. We had to keep moving, so instead of following them we carried on exploring.
We had ascended to 15m and were swimming away from the wall. Along the way I spotted a Grey Trigger Fish that I am disappointed not to find in my developed films. An experienced instructor looked under a rock where he found an octopus. He played with it and put his hand in its way every time it went round in circles! I was laughing into my regulator. The man really did have a sense of humour!
After 5 minutes of slightly cruel, but hilarious behaviour we searched the reef...
The reef seemed quite boring, but suddenly we looked down and saw a brilliantly camouflaged ray. We couldn't believe our luck. We all sat round it doing our best not to disturb it. I kept scanning my brain trying to work out what it could possibly be. I had no idea, 'Had we discovered a rare species'? I took as many pictures as possible. We left it behind after a while. We saw another ray, but this time it was very timid. It swam away like a bird with huge wings. Both the rays seemed to have a 1.5metre disc width. Quite big compared with us. It's name is the 'Widewing Butterfly Ray'.
It was now time to ascend. People at the surface were upset when they heard what they missed. Every time I think of this experience I smile.
Amazing...
(Written and photographed by James Yonge: jamesyonge@hotmail.com )