This morning I was off to Ras Mohammed for the second day on the trot. And… for the second day on the trot, there was little or no breeze! Yay!

Off we sailed on glassy seas, out to our first dive Ras Za’atar. This was to be a drift (as are all dives in the National Park) and can either be done in the morning as a sunny dive, or is still quite cool in the afternoon as a spooky moody dive with shards of sunlight piercing the gloom. I opted for sunny morning dive today. We had a very pretty dive, although will admit, that whilst this is a dive on which bigger stuff can turn up, today wasn’t to be one of those days. We took in the fantastic table coral pinnacle at about 20m. It always looks like a waiter’s arm holding a massive tray to me… a big fan coral sits on the side, in which I found a resident long-nosed hawk fish… always notoriously difficult to spot. And then on we went on our dive.

The end of the dive is quite lovely too, as there is a little shelter around the corner, at about safety stop level, filled with glassfish, swirling around their resident grouper. Very cool.

The afternoon’s dive was to be Shark and Yolande, and as we had gone around the corner to shelter, I decided to check the current on Turtle Rock (Baby Yolande to some). Not to sound smug, but the skipper and the other guide all pointed out that the current should be running normal as divers were exiting by the baby reef, but I thought I would drop in anyway… just to check, and yes it was running in reverse. I do like to dive with the current, rather than fighting it the whole way.

Anyway, in we jumped, right on the wreckage of the Yolande itself, and first thing we saw was a big moray. Good start to the dive I feel. The current was very mild, so we were able to take our time meandering up the length of the wreckage, taking in the bathtubs, toilets, linoleum rolls, squished car, everything really. As we wended our way towards the shallow coral garden behind the Yolande reef… there we found a blue spotted ray, another moray eel, and then were followed by a free-swimming moray eel! All very nice stuff, but not the thing I was specifically looking for.

I carried on, waiting to see the little alcove and it’s very cute resident, drifting gently with the flow. Then I saw her, bimbling along, flippers too big for her shell… our little baby green turtle! Ahhhh she’s sooo cute. Her eyes, always look kind of half mast, and she just looks so shiny and new and clean. Today she seemed a little more chilled out, and we just hovered and watched her ambling along her merry way for a little while before flying off and around towards Anenome City. Hmmm very nice dive.

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