We went to a site called Aquarium on the southwest side of the island and WOW!! It was definitely the best dive spot I have been to in the Caribbean! Tons of fish of all kinds of varieties! Also saw several Eels, lobster, and at least 3 Lionfish.
Now, the Lionfish are very pretty fish, but they are very bad for the other fish in the reef as well as the coral itself. They have no natural predators and will eat up the reef until they are fat and happy!
The Lionfish have big spines mixed into those fins that carry toxins that can even harm humans. Sooo, our dive instructor Glenn used a small speargun to kill them. He got 2 of them for sure and the biggest one got hit, but managed to get away, so he may or may not have died.
Its kinda sad that they have to kill them, but if they didn't, the waters around here would get over-run with lionfish and they would ruin the reefs.
On our way back to the dock, it was definitely one of the prettiest days that I have seen while here on Statia. You could see The Quill very easily with no cloud cover over it. (The Quill is a dormant volcano that you can actually hike up into. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to before I leave here).
Snapped a photo with my iPhone!
Oh, and I got to use my new regulator and dive watch on the dive! Loved them both.. although I gotta figure something out with my wireless dive watch, because it kept losing signal with the transmitter on my back and was beeping in my ear. It was quite frustrating, so I'll figure that out and not have to deal with it so much!
Anyway, Path quiz tomorrow, so off to studying!
