You Want Me To Go How Many Miles Offshore In That Little Boat?

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Well, it's not the Cat Knapp... let me assure you that it was totally worth my while.

I didn’t think that I was going to be able to dive again in Tonga but timing worked out perfectly for a small group to go out with Brian and Sabine’s dive shop, Fins -N- Flukes. Sabine is originally from Germany and Brian from Ireland, how the two of them ended up in Pangai is beyond me, but I met them earlier at Mariner’s Cafe. They have the cutest little puppy and great attitudes, just good people to hang around.

Jay and Thomae had made friends with them early too, so it was easy enough to get additional divers (Me, Derrick, and James) together. Though a bit of a cloudy day, we left the ship early and met on the dock with our gear. My first thought as I saw the “dive boat” was “OMG”. It’s a very small boat and I had heard that we would be going offshore a bit, so I was needless to say, worried. Nonetheless, I sucked up my big boat snobbery and geared up reduce the need for “getting ready” space. We all climbed aboard and off we went for our first spot.

Let’s just say that Brian and I are very alike in that we like just looking around for cool stuff in a slow, methodical manner. Between the group, we found a stonefish, lots of nudibranchs, pipefish, shrimp, etc. I love it when a diver enjoys the smaller organisms. The area he took us to was abundant in every sort of critter/coral imaginable. Same thing for the second dive. There’s almost too many photos to post!

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Photos

Sabine and Brian
The shop owners

Stonefish
Can you see him?

It's me
See how happy I am?

Sea Snake
One of many on this trip

Comments

[brian heagney]

upscaling
We will have a bigger boat soon, hopefully it will be ready for your return. Your stone fish pic is so cool, what a great find, but photoshop will make all the difference!