Diving St. Thomas (still!)

Wreck of the Gen. Rogers, off of St. Thomas, USVI
Nov. 13, 2008
Logged dive: No. 25
Max depth: 64 feet
Bottomtime: 45 minutes

The day was overcast and dark with clouds, but the diving must go on.
We headed out on the boat from Coki Beach to a site Peter said might not be the best visibility because of the weather and because it was a wreck in the channel between a couple islands. So the bottom was very sandy which could make for some siltiness.

It shows up as backscatter in the photos and some video.
The swim to the wreck was littered with tires that had been dropped in an effort to form reefs. But Peter said they were not the best thing since the chemicals in them leeched into the water.
Nice. I guess they had been there a while though since corals and sponges were already attaching themselves.

Once we got to the ship, it was nice to see that it was not huge. Just big enough to be a good home for a nice variety of fish, etc.

I took a few photos, but mostly worked video here.

The shot below is one the manfriend took of a crazy, creepy wormy thing.

It freaks me out, but I love it.

That is me, below, doing the safety stop on the anchor line at the end of the dive. Taken by MF, of course.





Next dive...

Mingo, off of St. Thomas, USVI
Nov. 13, 2008
Logged dive: No. 26
Max depth: 55 feet
Bottomtime: 45 minutes

This area is made up of several small reefs dotting the ocean floor. There is a lot of coral, sponges and reef fish.

We saw a lot here. There was a turtle, a couple jellies, an octopus and a funny little crab.
Some of that is in the video.



MF took the shot below at the start of the dive.

Below is another shot by MF. I tried to get a shot of something similar on a previous dive, but could not get anything nearly this nice.

Puffer guy, below, by MF.

Glowing little shrimp thing, below, by MF.

Here is the crab, below. I took this shot. It has much more blue in it that I wanted. But at least it is nice and clear.

The thing below looked like a light pole or something. Stuff was growing on it, living under it. This shot below and the next two after that are mine.

This guy was living under the pole. I like the spots and the pouty, pissed-off look on his face.

Here he is again. I wonder why I think of all the fish as "he."

I find the sponges pretty interesting, too. There are so many colors and shapes and sizes of them.

This one had a little shrimpy guy living in it.

This looked like some sort of avant garde vase.

OK. They will keep coming for a little while longer.

I still have four more dives to document. If not for anyone reading this, then at least for my own record.