Saturday morning I dove with my dive instructor/dive buddy Darryl at Natura (aka El Natural). It's a beautiful, very popular dive site just around the corner of the island, just north of Crashboat beach.
We met at was has become "the usual" time, 7:00 am. By the time we "geared up" and got in the water it was 7:2o. Full light out, but because Natura is around the corner, the sun has to get pretty high over the cliff before it reaches the water. So we had plenty of light but it was very flat, with little direction (except down, of course).
About halfway through our nearly hour-long dive, just before we turned to start the return leg, we were about 70 feet down when the sun came over the mountain and hit the water. The whole reef lit up like it was in a spotlight on stage. Big barrel sponges were back-lit by the sun were in silhouette except for the bright edges. Little lavender-colored corals, looking like grape hyacinth in full bloom in the spring, glowed in the early light. A big hawksbill turtle swam right underneath me. He was in a big banking turn through the water almost like an airplane banking through the air.
Natura is a VERY different reef from the ones off Shacks, right out here where we usually snorkel and dive. Rather than the canyons and caverns of the outside reef at Shacks, Natura is a long sloping reef that drops from about 30 feet to 75 feet. There are none of the elkhorn coral that are so common and so beautiful at Shacks.
On the other hand, there are big barrel sponges and different finger corals waving in the current. All in all, it's another amazing dive site within just a few minutes of home. And while there are many great boat-trip dive sites nearby (the islands of Desecheo and Mona and off shore at La Paguara, for example), these sites are walk-in-right-from-the-beach dives.
Sorry, still no pictures. Still no resolution with Canon about the housing and camera issue. SOON! (I hope - I'm going crazy without it.)
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