For once in a very long time we had excellent weather, hot and sunny with a gentle southwest breeze. Consequently turn out was better than anything seen for some time with 21 in total. For a change we decided to leave from Tai Mei Tuk and try for Breakers Reef, a site we don't get out to very often due to its exposed location. Luckily the winds were perfect and Mr Yip was happy with our choice so on we went.
Breakers Reef is quite a trek from Tai Mei Tuk so once the boat briefing was out the way, most people adjourned to the upper decks to relax and enjoy the view. On arrival at Breakers, I dropped over the side to check the conditions and to my amazement I could actually see the bottom, a rare event in Hong Kong. Visibility was excellent, easily 10-15 m, and the entire first wave came back beaming especially Ron and Lucy reporting their best ever dive at Breakers. Even Gilbert was suitably impressed and actually set his camera up for wide angle, another rare event. Caroline and I went on the second wave and sighted the occasional Moray, more than the occasional jelly fish! Octopus and large shoals of tiny silver fish, which caught the sunlight as they moved perfectly synchronised. There were also plenty of wrasse, Sergeant Majors and some good macro stuff including tiny commensal shrimp living on feather stars and tons on Nudibranch.
Lunchtime gave me a chance to say hello to all the new faces. Grant had brought along Richard and Louisa who I am glad to say enjoyed themselves so much they joined. Tristan also arrived with friends in tow Ian, Sony and Michelle, so hopefully we will see a bit more of them in the future too.
The second dive of the day wasn't quite as good mainly because the sun was lower in the sky. Visibility was still excellent it just wasn't as bright. While we were all busy having lunch a small boat had arrived and a pair of skin divers dropped in to go spear fishing. Luckily they moved on as we were ready for our second dive although I did come across a large cat fish with a nasty abdominal wound which looked very much like it was caused by a spear. Gilbert had been busy practising for his Red Sea competition and reported finding some great fan corals in the gullies. While most came back with very similar reports to their first dive great vis, lots of fish but watch out for the jellies.
We want more!
Jason Claricoates