I'm back home from my scuba trip to St Croix. I left my camera at home because my pictures in Cozumel on the last scuba trip showed me that underwater photography requires a lot more scuba experience/skill than I have. It was a fun trip, a good boat, and a great crew, but the diving was decidedly not spectacular. Not spectacular, but still fun, with lots of pretty fishes and very nice corals, and we even dived on a few wrecks. I stood on the deck of a tugboat 60 feet down and pretended to steer it. Saw some turtles, an octopus, a seahorse, lots of queen angelfish (one of my favorites!) but no sharks, darn it all! We were using steel 95s and by the end of the week my back was seriously hurting. Entry was by giant stride from the dive deck about 5 feet above the water. That's the highest entry I've ever done, and always scares me, but I did it. Did my first night dive, which I didn't much care for. I was going to do a deep (100 foot) dive with an instructor, but changed my mind. I have no need to go deep. I set my limit for this trip at 70 feet, and stuck to it. Whenever I was tempted to go deeper I reminded myself of the admonition: "Plan your dive, and dive your plan." My air consumption was almost as good as some of the instructors. And I made significant improvements in my buoyancy control. I would recommend the boat (Nekton Pilot) but not the place (St Croix).
I like seeing fish sleeping on the bottom at night. In inland lakes, the little pan fish just sit there sawing wood. Without eyelids, you can't tell that they are sleeping, but when you touch them they look pretty startled and dart off. Tom
