Dive #204 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

This turtle soon became an amusement park ride for other divers
Videograph by Rich Torkington in Bahamas 2005

Dive Journal: Linda, Janel, and John are going on the batik trip today, which will give them a tour of the plant and a lesson in the process. Can you say “batik technique?”

The dive boat heads out to a site called Hanging Gardens. I’m soon talking to a very pleasant Canadian gentleman named Paul, who is a judge when he’s not on vacation. Our conversation drifts around to his 2 knee replacements. He figures he had to get them due to an athletic past, and he wonders why he didn’t have them replaced sooner. I tell him all of my mom’s heroics with her own knee replacement.

Paul and I decide to be dive buddies this morning. We descend to find a long north-south wall, and when all the other divers first head south, we decide to go north. We soon come across a pretty little turtle nestled down on the reef wall, and I immediately like the way Paul is very quiet and observant around it, like I try to be. I manage to get a few minutes of video before other divers show up, who unfortunately perturb the turtle out of its location, and then chase it away trying to grab on for a ride.

We continue north and are fortunate enough to run into another turtle, who doesn’t stay around very long. The fish life here this morning is otherwise fairly sparse, although the terrain is pretty. The wall is nearly vertical in some areas with overhangs of gorgonians flowing out into the mild currents.

We backtrack to the anchor line, head in off the wall a bit, and examine lots of holes and depressions in the corals. Paul’s only worn a 3mm shorty this morning, and I can tell he’s chilled, so we trim our bottom time a little bit and head up the anchor rope. I’ve put my shorty outside my full suit this morning, which looks pretty goofy (red shorty on blue/black full suit) but seems to keep me even warmer than yesterday.