Lobster, No Lobster. Yes Lobster

After the shark feed we dove Lobster No Lobster.

Did you know that lobsters migrate?  They do, and neither European nor African swallows are involved.

Jacques Cousteau named this site because on one dive he found this reef just teeming with lobster. The next time he dove it there wasn't a lobster to be found.

Yes Lobster do indeed move around and migrate. 

We first dove Lobster No Lobster during the day and didn't see a single lobster.

There was a rather healthy reef system there.

 And smiling fish

 

There were also some quite large Lion fish.

 

Each spine on a lion fish is venomous and if you touch it, it hurts, a lot. So avoiding these invasive species is a really good idea, and there are unfortunately quite a few of them around.

 No lobster in sight.

Still a nice dive. 

The night dive however did have lobster.

Big. Lobster.

 

And a big Crab:

And a tiny Stingray

 

And best of all, a tiny and cute Octopus!

First time seeing an Octopus in the wild.  Very cool. 

That was a night dive for the books, we just kept finding cool creatures.

Day Dive: 44 minutes, average depth 27 feet, and a max depth of 32 feet.

Night dive:  1 hour, average depth 24 feet, and a max depth of 31 feet. 

Cruise Day 3 - Turks and Caicos

We arrived in Grand Turk in the morning and the ship docked.

We headed out and walked with our group along the beach to wear a boat awaited to take us on a reef snorkel and stingray experience.  We did snorkel as Tash doesn't scuba dive, and there wasn't a listed excursion for diving (I later found out a few divers had done a non-Princess dive trip and had a great time).

We took the boat a short distance out to the reef and as we did they passed out the fins, masks, snorkels and snorkling vests and went over procedures. Water in the area of the reef would be about 15 feet deep so no issues.

We got in and started swimming around a bit to view the reef and assorted sea life there.

One lady on the trip got immediately kinda freaked out snorkeling and was then towed around the reef by one of the tour guides so she could view the reef.  Good on her for giving it a go, and sticking to it even after getting scared and still staying in the water and getting the experience.

It was a nice, relaxing time snorkeling in calm warm water.  No complaints there.  After about a half hour We then re-boarded the boat and headed to the waters by a beach where the stingrays were known to hang out.'

Sure enough one came right in and up to the tour guide and the stingray experience was on.

 The stingray was big. You got to hold it, give it a kiss, and get a stingray hug.  The hug felt like being covered with a large, wet, soft, mushroom:

A rather gentle animal, it was rewarded with fish for its efforts, and seemed to enjoy the interaction as much as all the people did, as it happily hung around.

Once the tour ended, we wandered around for a bit, and then headed back to the ship for a nap and to hang out our wet clothes.

Then on to dinner and I again played craps and won $25 to make it the end of another great day.

Cruise Report - Day 3 - Got Stingray?

While the men were off diving, the ladies originally planned to go shopping.

This plan lasted approximately 10 minutes from contact with the enemy - namely, the stores of Grand Cayman near the port are for definite high-enders in terms of jewelry, watches crystal, etc.

So not to be bored, at the dock they signed on with a combination snorkel and stingray experience. Talk about being brave and getting out of your comfort zone, especially as neither of then like to get their heads underwater.

They had a great experience.

The snorkling according to them was great - no problem viewing the reef and fish.

Then on to the stingrays. These were not aquarium rays, but wild - sting in - stingrays, in the ocean, and the stingrays would swim up to them.

The girls proceeded to hold, pet, feed and even give the stingrays a kiss for luck. (Lucky stingrays indeed to get that kind of treatment). They had a great time with those gentle creatures, and they couldn't stop talking excitedly about it.

We then all met back on the ship for lunch and had a great time.

The girls highly recommend the snorkel/tingray encounter, and being such savy shoppers they got it at the dock for much less than what it would have cost through the cruise line.

Jerry and I were both proud of our respective ladies for their daring adventure - now if we can just get them to trade the snorkel for a Scuba regulator....