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I dove with Judy, Mary from Tampa and David, a professional photographer introduced to the bridge just recently. Check out his work here http://davidpearlmanphotography.com/. If the link gets striped google davidperalmanphotography. His underwater photo website is www.underseaimagery.com ; if anyone wants to take a pick.

I had lost the o-ring for my yoke adaptor and this unfortunate even made me late for the dive even though I arrived on time. My dive was saved twice. Judy spare me a bottle and a fill and David gave me one of his fat o-rings, Type that I have to stock of. Thanks again to David and Judy. Because of the o-ring I started my dive after the group. I went to check out the two orange seahorses that live on the sponges by the barge but I didn’t take photos because I wanted something different. Today I wanted to shoot something that I haven’t seen before so I swam by a lot of the regular citizens: batfish with cute red face, a couple of shy sea robins with divers all over them, jaw fish with no eggs, flabs, learchis, dondice…. Then I saw a pretty big blenny and of course it yawned when I wasn’t ready. And I waited and waited for another yawn but of course it didn’t happen. I haven’t noticed that particular kind before and then I saw them everywhere and I also noticed their mates. Now I think I should have waited and observe for a while. A mating party was probably going on. I was in a funky mode and couldn’t concentrate so I snapped a photo and continued my search for something that would give me that desire of wanting to connect with it and photograph that connection. But nothing I saw made me feel that way. I went under the bridge. I tried to take a close up of a mantis shrimp that wasn’t bothered by my huge housing, but it was boring. It looked black to the eyes and sparkly green to the camera but no eggs. I moved on. I saw a lot of fish more than usual. I followed some shinnies for a while and tried to take a juvi hamlet but it disappeared just after the first flash. Tide was about to turn and I wanted to get out from underneath the bridge. I saw Judy then and headed towards her trying not to interrupt her to abruptly, she looked concentrated shooting something and from a safe distance I asked her for Linda’s yellow seahorse and she took me to it, very cute and shy. Thanx Judy for showing me. The seahorse was probably the most exiting critter of the day. It had a white nudi on its body but white on light yellow=blown!. There was another baby seahorse in the same sea plant a baby one brownish ugly one. Even more shy than the yellow one. At this point the tide had turned and I only took a couple of ID shots and headed out. I wanted to catch Judy to return the tank she loan me. I really didn’t want to drive to the dive shop to return it. It’s at least a half hour detour for me. I could have stayed a lot longer but since my head was in the wrong setting I called it a dive. I rushed out when I saw Linda getting out. I wanted to listen to her Sargassum stories.

I joined my dive buddies for lunch up the road and I ate all my fries! I haven’t done that in a long time.

Photo notes: I had r10 error and my shutter wouldn’t fire…maybe I accidentally turned the settings to focus priority…have to double check. Not to mention it was annoying.

21 ft 127 min 80cc AL 86oF 1000+ psi remaining

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