Cozumel Diving 2011 - Day 7

Day 7 -- A beautiful day for diving with calm winds and flat seas. S trip down toward the southern end of the island brought us to Palancar Garden Reef for our first dive. Lazy swim through tunnels between 70 and 90 feet were relaxing. Coming out on top of the reef brought an array of sea life. Our second dive was at San Clement Reef. This is a reef which we dove earlier in the week at night, but this was the first ever daylight dive for us at this location. It is a shallow reef (20-45 ft.) and was one on which we spent just over ninety minutes today. We looked for and found many tiny sea creatures: Nudi-Branch of assorted varities; tiny sand and rock blennies; a flounder about the size of a quarter; and many very small fish. Toward the end of the dive we found ourselves face to face with a small school of Reef Squid. This is something we'd never encountered before. We hope you enjoy the pictures and please leave us a comment.

From some of the LARGEST (Mitch with a Great Grouper)......................To some of the smallest (Mitch with a Nudi-Branch lying on his arm) Spider Crab (Good shot, Reva!) Trunk Fish (or is that Mitch looking in a mirror?)
God's glorious beauty shines through at 90 feet under the sea!

This little reef fish is only about 3 inches long and very difficult to catch in a photograph. In all our years of diving, this is the best we've been able to do!

A nudi-branch (about 1/2 inch long) inside a yellow barrell sponge.

School of Reef Squid passing by.

Very nice File Fish, but Mitch will never catch him! Reef Mermaid. I think I'll take her home with me!