Underwater Shenanigans!

So finally, after all the diving we've done here on the island of Okinawa, and after I've told all of you about all the amazing things I've seen, now we finally have proof!! I made Mike break down and get an underwater digital camera Thursday (today is Saturday) so we could have documented evidence of the nifty things/critters we see.

I was totally bummed last week when we saw an octopus at Maeda Point, then a school of hundreds of fishies swam right past us at the Sea Wall. I wanted to try to covey to all of you my excitement about the rare sights, and yet I had no photo evidence, so now I do!! Hooray!

So I had to work this morning at our clinic's Saturday vaccine clinic until noon, a total bummer, but that did not stop us from getting under the sea, under the sea (before I bust into a random little mermaid song, I shall digress...) We hopped in the car in search of good waters as soon as I was outta the clinic (12:01pm) and after a couple "sporty" locations were snubbed, we decided to head out to good ol' Maeda Point, pronounced My-duh.

Maeda is a fantastic spot full of awesome critters and a ledge that drops to about 110 feet on a high-tide day, so it provides lots of different levels of sights and whatnot. The only drawback is there are over 70 steps you have to walk down full geared up to get to the water. Yeah, that means there are over 70 to climb back up with over 50-60 pounds strapped to your back... needlesss to say, after a few dives a day, you are pretty wiped, but it's worth it.

So anywho, we went to Maeda today... we straped our gear on and headed out. There were lots of cool things to see. The first pic is of a clown fish. They look mor ered when you are under water, but I thought this was a decent pic considering he was swimming along at a good clip. They are awesome little fishies... they like to hang around their little anemonea and swim right up to you when you get too close. They will get like a foot from your face and just stare at you... they are very intense little fish, and with that crazed look in their eyes, you don't want to screw with them... tiny but fierce.

Next is Mike with a random tropical fish. I should know the name of it... but I don't, sue me.

The next pic is of a huge blob of random fish. The japanese were down there feeding them little chunks of something, and they were like flocking to them, so I had to get up close and get in on the action. There was this one bat fish that had to be bigger than a basketball... it was pretty cool. They would all come right up to your hands looking for food and right in your face... very coolio!

Next is a random puffer fish... I tried to chase him down and get him to puff up, but he was pretty quick. We went on a night dive before and one of the guys were able to get ahold of a puffer's tail, and he puffed right up to about double the size of a softball. I thought they would be really hard and picky like the ones you see at souvenier stores, but he was really squishy and his little spines were soft when you felt him. He stayed poofy for quite a while and we did a little "bounce the puffer around" action, then let him be... as mindful divers, we're spposed to enjoy nature, not harass it :-)

Last, the good ol' self-taken pic. I must inform you that taking your own pic at 50 feet below the surface is quite interesting. I tried to smile but ended up looking constipated... ugh. We were swiming up agains the ledge so we were trying not to sink, float too high, get bubbles in the picture, bump into crap, etc. So this was the result... I'm sure there will be many more self-taken installments in the future, but this is the first!

Hope you all enjoyed just a little taste of the new camera action. We'll be boat diving tomorrow so I hope to get some real good shots then too so we can get them up here and share them with all of you!! Hope you enjoyed!!