Next morning (day 3) the first dive was at the clam gardens. Very appropriate name for the dive site because there were several giant clams measuring upto 2 meters in length. The neat thing about the clams was that if you put your hand or even a finger on the edge of the clam, it would close rapidly. They'd open up again after a few minutes once they feel the danger has passed. I only did that once because I didn't feel like harrasing them as they are living creatures as well. We also spotted bump headed parrot fish. This dive was also our first encounter of a sting ray. We also saw gobies and christmas tree worm. Again an excellent dive.
The next dive was at Steve's Bommie named after a diver/adventurer who passed away in a motorcycle accident in 1989. His friends laid the placque on the bommie to pay a hommage to this seafarer. This dive we had to complete the "underwater naturalist" portion of the advanced course. We had to spot 3 vertibrates, 3 invertibrates, 5 different types of corals (soft corals, hard corals) and 1 symbiotic relation. This dive was an excellent opportunity to spot stone fish. We saw 3 stone fish. We also saw clown fish, pufferfish and numerous other (we don't know their names.) I also spotted a baby "nemo" and when I tried to show it to Ginnie, I couldn't see it again. It was tiny!
Dive 11, 3rd dive of day 3 was at reef 2 and 2/3 named solely beacause it laid 2/3 of distance between reef 2 and 3. Trent asked a mathematical question when we were on the sun deck to see who could answer what the name of the dive site was based on it's location. Ginnie was quick to get the name before anyone could answer. Anyways, this dive we did our navigation for advanced course. We were all given our own underwater compass and taught how to use it. It was a very simple test which didn't even really require the use of the compass because the visibility was amazing. Once the exercise was over, we went off to see trumpt fish and schools of sweetlips (diagonal banded).
Gin opted out of the last dive. It was a night dive at the Beer Garden. After the dibacle of the first night dive, I couldn't believe I was going for a second night dive. Anyways, Alan and Franchesco also opted out of the night dive. This situation lends itself for Xavi and I to be dive buddies. We were hoping to see a turtle sleeping under a ledge or see something very unique as Trent had so enthusiastically mentioned for the first night dive. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. We neither saw a turtle nor we saw anything unique. We only saw one white tipped reef shark at close proximity and that was it for the night dive. Two pretty uneventful night dives later, Gin, Alan, Xavi, Francheso and I all agreed unanimously that night dives weren't quite as exciting.
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