Weather

When anyone asks what the best time of year to come diving is, we always reply 'April and May'. This year was no different. For most of these months, we had flat seas and sunny days and the water was still around a cosy 26°Celsius.

Wildlife

On the first day of the month two boats launched roughly at the same time. One had divers on board and the other had guests going on an Ocean Experience (a marine version of a game drive with snorkelling). On this day our guests where extremely lucky. Clive, who was with the snorkellers, found an enormous pod of spinner dolphins. He radioed Darryl with the divers and soon all our guests were watching 500 - 600 of these small mammals. Spinner dolphins are smaller than their cousins, the common bottlenose dolphin, and much shyer. Their name comes from the way they jump out of the water, spinning though the air like corkscrews. This huge pod gave us a wonderful display with adults and tiny babies all leaping and spinning around us. We drove the boat quite far ahead of them and quickly, but quietly, dropped into the water with our masks and snorkels. Shortly thereafter, we were surrounded by the pod - it was totally captivating. 

Another dolphin sighting this month occurred at the shallow section of Elusive (around 12 metres). I was there with two open water students and about 20 minutes into the dive, a single dolphin came past, did a few circles around us, paused, "squeaked" and then swam off into the blue. It was such a wonderful way to be welcomed into the world of diving.

At Coachman's Ledge, a great reef just south of Coral Alley, Mich found a purple weedy scorpionfish.  As its name suggests, it is part of the scorpionfish family and has the same highly venomous spikes. These scorpionfish are on everyone's "critter list" so it was a marvellous surprise to see it. (Photo: Karen Deller)

We have also had a several remora sightings. On one occasion, at Gogo's, a large one followed the group for more than half the dive. Remora are strange looking creatures also known as suckerfish because they stick themselves to the ventral sides of larger fish such as sharks, whale sharks, manta rays and even the occasional scuba diver.

We've been privileged to see two whale sharks this month. One of them was about seven metres and the other about eight metres long.  On both occasions we were able to snorkel with them.

Other interesting sightings for the month have included a long-nose hawkfish at Solitude, peacock flounders, paperfish, whip coral gobies, green and hawksbill turtles and many moray eels (some of them enormous). Unfortunately the pineapple fish that has been living in a cave at Ariel Reef has gone. Hopefully it has moved on to a new home.

Congratulations to the following divers:
Jean-Luc, Danielle, Sonja, Javes and Uince for completing their PADI Discover Scuba Diving Course

Julian and Celia for completing their PADI Open Water Diver Course

Oliver and Jayden for completing their PADI Rescue Diver Course

Oliver for completing his Emergency First Response Course

Regards from the Dive Team