June 2 - We don't need no stinkin viz

Katie and I dropped into the emerald green waters above Shangrila Reef, the sun filtering through algae and plankton so thick we couldn't see our fins.  It was a bright spring morning on the surface, it was twilight on the reef.  The current pulled at our bodies as we kicked with our fins struggling to stay in place.  Ready to go in, Pam had us wait 10 minutes for slack, it lasted for a few seconds.

Decorated Warbonnet on Shangrila Reef

Our lights reflected off the plankton, a million diamonds surrounding us, isolating us.  We circumscribed the reef looking for wolf eels and octopi.  A mosshead warbonnet pulled itself underneath an overhang, to narrow for a picture.  I tried sign language to get it to come out, Katie used a wave of her hand.  It rested on a ledge above us blending the colors of its body with the encrusting sponge on the wall and its face with the mossy kelp on the rock.  Ma and Pa wolf eel were in their den.  White flesh torn from Pa's upper lip, red streaks exposed in the open wound.

Katie trapped in the jello

Descending on Devil's Boulder was worse than Shang.  The plankton clumped, disorienting us in our descent.  Below 40 feet the filtered light diminished from an uneasy twilight to the deep black of night.  As we descended, dark boulders appeared from nowhere signaling the bottom.  We couldn't find the line to the reef so we followed a narrow string attached to a rock.  Katie was waiting at the end swinging the broken line from side to side.   Time passed as if in a dream.  20 minutes became 10 and 10 became 3.  Meteors streaked down upon us from the from the night sky above.  It was time to ascend and leave the exploration of this alien world to the others.



Click here for additional photos