Finally back in the water
After what seemed like an eternity (in reality, just over 2 months) I finally got back into the water and dived on Saturday morning at Maeda Misaki. I’m pretty sure it’s been the longest period I’ve ever been out of the water since I came to Okinawa, and as soon as I got in I realised how much I’d missed it. Met up with Brian at 7am at Maeda, and upon meeting we found out that parking to the dive site doesn’t actually open until 8am (shows how much we haven’t been diving!). On heading over to look at the conditions we were astonished though. It was probably the flattest I have ever seen the ocean off the coast of Maeda. There really wasn’t a single ripple in the water and was pretty breathtaking.
So 8am comes, the gates open up and typically, we are first into the water. That’s a great feeling, as you know that a lot of the more timid fish may still be around before everyone else jumps in and starts disturbing them. But man that water felt cold after 2 months being out of the loop! The official temperature was 22.7C in the water, but when that stuff hits the base of your spine it feels ice cold! But a bit of cold water wasn’t going to stop me diving so we descended and headed left along the wall. Saw a big (50-60cm) stonefish and some nice corals on what ended up being a deep dive (to around 34m). When we returned and came to the shallower waters we saw a cuttlefish too, which made my day as they really are my favourite marine animal. They just like like something not from this earth, with their colour changing and the way the propel themselves through the water.
So the 2nd dive of the day was even better, as we saw 3 of the things! Admittadly, one of them might have been the one we saw on the previous dive being spotted again, but it was still great. And I think we were watching 2 of them mating at one point. We spotted one cuttlefish which was pretty big and hovering close to the bottom. We went over and stayed a safe distance from it so as not to scare it off. Anyway, after about a minute it suddenly shot off at great speed and then we saw a smaller cuttlefish which must have been below the bigger one. Smaller cuttlefish then sauntered away with a post-coital glow to it (ok - so the very last part wasn’t strictly true!). I have to say at the end of this dive I was feeling pretty chilly. The water was a little cool and I had only had around 3 hours sleep the previous night so wasn’t full of energy. But I was back in the water for the first time in 2008 and am looking forward to getting back in once again this coming weekend. Until then, take care and dive safely.
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So Maeda finally had a good day eh? We have pics from two weeks ago where the winds were gusting so hard the water was actually ‘piled’ in the bay. It was so weird to see it like that, since yeah, most of the time its like glass.