Paradise Reef, Saturday 18th April 2009 10:00am
Diving with Pro Divers St Kitts on Paradise Reef
I am about 10ft below the surface and the bottom slowly comes into view, I can see a large sandy
patch in the centre of a reef that extends way beyond my vis. Quickly I finish my descent. I check my air and computer and start to look around. Just above the coral sits a 2 ft Barracuda, we exchange stares as I move in for my first photo, I manage just the one shot and bored with me he swims away and resumes his hover.
A good start I think as we slowly swim over the top of the reef towards the seaward wall. I look among the coral and see a huge colony of juvenile fish darting in and out of the crevasses. Small parrotfish are common as are small Blue Chroma, plus lots of tiny, tiny stuff that is too small to recognise and far too quick to photograph. The coral itself is worth my interest. Trumpet Sponges, Fingers and Fans abound, a few quick shots and I move on.
Slowly I drop down the wall to 90 ft, check my air and computer then start to search among the corals. I look to my left into the deep just as a shoal of large Blue Chroma swim by. I fin quickly towards the shoal and realise that behind them are Horse-eye Jacks. My still camera cannot even begin to capture the images I am seeing. I kick myself for not bringing the video camera, and I turn around to swim back to the wall. In my haste I have now lost site of the wall and the rest of the dive group. A quick check of the compass and less than a minute later I see them gathered around an opening in the coral.
I can tell they have seen something interesting and I soon realise they have found a Spotted Moray lurking amongst the coral. One close-up is all I get before the Moray turns and disappears deep into the reef. Not wanting to linger I swim on, convinced there is even more to see at this incredible site
.
We ascend the wall and fin slowly across the top of the reef back towards the boat. A movement in one of the sandy patches catches my eye and I see a Stonefish “walking” along the sand. We pass under a local fishermen we saw sitting in his boat earlier and we see lots of small fishes nibbling away at his baited hooks, 1-0 to the fish I think as we return to the boat.
1 hour and 20 minutes later we descend for dive 2. Again the amount of life amongst the coral here is amazing. We cross over the reef on our way to the wall on the landward side. Viz is slightly worse here, but who cares. As we cross a sandy crevasse in the reef we spot a Stingray lying in the sand. As we gather around he comes up and so gracefully swims away. I manage to get off a quick shot and, as I look up from the camera I see a second larger Stingray swimming off to my right.
Over the top of the reef again and I am rewarded with a single Spotted Drum, not rare here, but a fish you will not see on every dive. The coral again catches my attention, I linger and take some more photos. Amongst the coral I find a Reef Crab. This one is about 4 inches across, a large specimen for an orange Reef Crab. I turn on my flash and get a good number of close-ups before he moves sideways away from me.
We fin over patches of sand interspersed with reef and it seems that the Barracuda have taken over the reef. I count around a dozen small individual specimens as we cross the coral.
Checking my air and computer I realise the dive is coming to a close so we hover looking slowly around into the deeper channel between the reef and the shore. We are rewarded with the sight of 2 
Leatherback Turtles some 30 or 40 ft away. One is old and large and we can see the barnacles on his shell. The other is only a juvenile, a common sight on the reefs here.
Back under the boat I have enough air for a few more minutes so two of us head out across the sand bottom and come across a platoon of large Conch slowly eating their way through the sparse sea grass bed. A fitting end to a great dive day!
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