Warm Memories

The mercury has plummeted. Walking out the chicken run to fetch the waterer in for the night, the snow squeaks underfoot. That old familiar squeak alone can make me feel cold.
Circular batfish
Platax orbicularis

This is the sort of weather for indoor things. As I have loads of time on my hands over the holidays, I have finally begun to upload some diving photos onto Flickr. I am trying to do this systematically. I am uploading them in the order that they were taken. I then am adding in the name of the fish in the picture (including the Latin name as I am a bit of a nerd) and the dive site.
Banded Snake Eel
Myrichthys colubrinus

We had ten days of diving during our holiday in Egypt. The first day out I did not bring my camera. I wanted to "get my chops back" before adding in the additional distraction of a camera. Having a camera is a distraction to diving and one becomes less aware of things. Ones discipline has to be sharpened and you have to know to look up and look around between shots and not get to involved in photography or something bad could happen.Network pipefish
Corythoichthys flavofasciatus

I took the camera on the second day's diving. It was a trip to Abu Dahab, a wonderful shore dive that was a short drive from our hotel. Imagine a little sandy bay with a coral reef to the right with a gentle slope into a vast area of sea grass in the centre. The temperature was in the mid 40's C, not a cloud to be seen and only a gentle breeze to stir the beach towels on the shore.

Sea turtles are the big and most reliable draw to this dive site. For me, once I've seen a turtle, I was much more interested in getting back to the reef where life and colour was almost exploding.

Hawksbill turle with 2 remora
Eretmochelys imbricata - turtle
Echeneis naucrates - remora

We had two dives that day with a lovely break for pizza and a nap between dives. The sun was scorching hot and naps were had under umbrellas. Where's a time machine when you really want one?

Lined butterflyfish
Chaetodon lineolatus with
lovely orange Anthias
Pseudanthias squamipinnis

The hawksbill turtle is rare and critically endangered. Having said that, most of the turtles we saw on this holiday were hawksbill turtles with the occasional green turtle thrown in for good measure.

We had an excellent day with no accidents and no sunburn!