Flagpole and Elephant Wall - 1/1/14

[Scubie Doo]

Yelloweye and I met up with Don-B for a couple dives off his boat. Don-B joined us on the first dive at Flagpole to play "guide" and he did a great job. He took us right to the cloud sponges and pointed out several Wolf Eels. Including this juvenile Wolfie that kept popping its head out.


The treat of the dive was a stubby squid inside an egg casing. I had never seen this and it was really cool.




Flagpole is an excellent dive, and Don-B was a great guide.

On the second dive at Elephant Wall, the critters were pretty sparse. But there were several nudibranchs including this Clown Nudi. It was pretty small.


And at the end of the dive I got to see my very first Sea Angel. It was tiny, so the photo isn't the best, but what a treat!


Thanks for a great day Don-B and Yelloweye.

[Don-B]

I'm glad you guys were able to go and had some good dives.
Your pic of the Sea Angel looks pretty good to me considering it was only 3/8 of an inch long.

[YellowEye]

We loved Flagpole, thanks very much for showing it to us, Don-B. That site doesn't look very swimmable, scooterable, even monofinable to me. Unless you're one of the lucky people we saw doing a shore dive from the private house right in front of the dive site! So thanks again for the ride! (with your nice fast boat!)

Great shots Jessie. Really awesome find on that Stubby!

Sea Angels came to greet us Happy New Year on our second dive at Elephant Point. This was my first sea angel sighting ever, and I've really been yearning to see them. They were quite a few of them right at the surface.

Some of the critters at flagpole are below.

Not shown in these photos are the incredible number of rockfish at this site, as well as the cloud sponges (this site makes picking macro or WA very hard!)

Here are some more from Elephant Wall

Happy New Year!
-Eric

[Scubie Doo]

Nice work on the sea angel. You got it in a great position!

Thanks again Don-B! Had a great day.

[YellowEye]

Nice work on the sea angel. You got it in a great position!

Thanks. It took me 150 shots to get this one I could have spent the whole dive on these critters.
These little ones (<1cm) were very hard to capture. I read they get up to 8cm long.

[LCF]

Such fabulous photographs! The one of the stubby in the egg is amazing.

Flagpole is actually a lovely scooter dive from the bottom of the road that you buy access to at Mike's. It's an easy surface scooter to the buoy, and then there's that nice wall at 120 that makes a great 25/25 scooter dive.

[Tom Nic]

Glad you had some good dives!

The stubby in the egg is off the hook!!

[Scubie Doo]

Such fabulous photographs! The one of the stubby in the egg is amazing.

Flagpole is actually a lovely scooter dive from the bottom of the road that you buy access to at Mike's. It's an easy surface scooter to the buoy, and then there's that nice wall at 120 that makes a great 25/25 scooter dive.

Thanks Lynne I was pretty happy about seeing the squid inside the egg sac. It was really tucked away, so I wasn't sure the photo would come out.

I think a scooter would be cool. But not sure I'd go for that surface swim. It's a haul!

[Scubie Doo]

Glad you had some good dives!

The stubby in the egg is off the hook!!

Thanks Tom. It was great. Diving off Don's boat was really fun.

I saw Jeff tonight and he was talking Bonaire. You guys are off soon bet your excited. What's funny is that my annual management meeting got rescheduled so I could have went after all :( however, I am heading to kona with Penders on the 17th so it all worked out in the end. Have an awesome time and lots of pics!

[Linedog]

WOW great photos both of you! I love the detail of the wolf eel.

[Tom Nic]

Glad you had some good dives!

The stubby in the egg is off the hook!!

Thanks Tom. It was great. Diving off Don's boat was really fun.

I saw Jeff tonight and he was talking Bonaire. You guys are off soon bet your excited. What's funny is that my annual management meeting got rescheduled so I could have went after all :( however, I am heading to kona with Penders on the 17th so it all worked out in the end. Have an awesome time and lots of pics!

Glad you're getting some big island diving. It is on my list. I have a convention in Hawaii in 2016 and will be setting aside a week or two to do some serious diving and R&R.

We will miss you in Bonaire - I really need this. It seems like every 6 months is about right for me to get a warm water fix. I thought I was done with Bonaire, but... well... let's just say, "Hi, I'm Tom - I'm a Bonaireaholic." Just can't go anywhere else for comparable price that has diving that is even close.

Hope to get back in the icy waters of the Sound and dive a ton before the murk of Spring makes its appearance.

Have fun in the islands!

[Scubie Doo]

Thanks Tom. I can't argue with bonaire's value. The best I've seen