Dive #160 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

Sunset on Amberjack Reef from the Sunset Deck of the Aquacat
Videograph by Rich Torkington in Bahamas 2003

Dive Journal: Linda and I both pour a big glass of red wine for dinner, and we figure we’ll relax on the boat for the evening. However, sitting there in the salon, Linda and Janel and I debate whether to do the night dive tonight, and in the end decide that we should.

There are especially plenty of big lobsters scurrying around at this site. We spot 3 or 4 tiger sea cucumbers here and one good sized crab. I do the coral polyp feeding thing here, too, which turns out to be exceptional. The plankton and other worms in the water seem to be larger than usual. The openings in the coral polyps are too small to ingest them whole, so instead the polyps close around one end of the worm while the other end wiggles like crazy. After a few seconds, the worm often explodes, sending a stream of milky pink juice into the water above the coral. Really cool to watch. Gavin calls this “giving something back” to the reef, to make up for accidentally touching it from time to time.

Once back on the boat, we spend the rest of the evening watching the shark feed video shot earlier today. And we finally get to finish our glasses of wine.