Dive #249 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

These nimble spray crabs live together with long spined urchins in shallow surge zones.
Videocap by Rich Torkington in the USVIs 2006

Dive Journal: This morning Linda and I decide to play the nearby Carambola Golf Course. This is a Robert Trent Jones course in a beautiful tropical setting, lush, wet, and green. We find it difficult to play at our bogey-plus-plus level, but well worth the effort.

In the afternoon, Linda , Janel and I grab our gear and drive east on the beach road as far as it will go, dead ending at the Carambola Resort. We park and eventually find the small resort dive station there to discuss a dive off the beach. They give us a good briefing and even though we’re just arriving off-the-street, the shop summons a golf cart and driver and they drive our gear from our car down to the beach. Very nice of them.

We fin out to a mooring ball on the west end of the bay, then submerge. Finding the wall, we head further west at first. There are some gorgeous spur-and-groove formations here, creating neat little canyons to explore everywhere. The fish life is thin, although there seems to be zillions of fry everywhere.

Further west, the visibility starts to get bad, again due to some kind of light colored stream of algae bloom in the water, so we double back east.

We come across an adult batwing coral crab, and we are fascinated to watch him in a heated duel with a damselfish. The battle goes on at least 5 minutes, with the damselfish finally victorious as the crab retreats.

Nice juvy spotted drum on this dive, and then a greater soapfish, which I have not seen in a while. Janel and Linda spotted a turtle and southern stingray over the reef.

We exit and it starts to rain. The dive station is closed up, and so we stay suited up and trudge up the hilly path to our car. Still, we just love those shore dives.