A Very Challenging High Current Dive at Diffushi Kandu Post retirement dive #819 February 13, 2025

The second dive of the day was expected to have high currents so we would spend most of the dive hooked to the reef and watch the fish and shark action. The current was so strong I struggled, as did Audry, to wield our cameras and strobes in the current in order to shoot photographs. Below, Antoine accurately told us what to expect with his dive briefing:

We had to drop quickly to reach the deep edge of the reef before being swept into the channel. Below:

We hooked to the reef near Antoine in 95ft of water, check out the horizontal bubbles due to the high current velocity, below:

We were rewarded with lots of fish and Silvertip Shark traffic though raising my camera to focus and shoot was difficult, below:

Below: A passing tuna

A large school of beautiful Rainbow Runners, below:

At that depth and it being the second dive of the day you need to both monitor your remaining nitrox and the no decompression limits on your computer. Our dive lasted about 50 minutes, rose to 20-15 ft for our safety stop, then we surfaced as a group, in this case, for pickup by Pelican. Below:

Here's some views from Pelican of what it is like to spot teams of divers that have deployed their smbs so that they are spotted and picked up after drifting through their safety stops, below:

The third dive of the day was a site called Fahala Girri which was a nice slow drift dive in beautiful coral. I teamed with Audry and were able to separate from the main group and go at a nice slow pace taking pictures. Below: a beautiful type of golden colored sea fan I've never seen before

We spotted several beautiful clams of a species new to me, below:

A beautiful Coral Trout, below:

Someday maybe I'll get a good Unicornfish photo. Someday. Below:

I spotted this cool small spotted fish, probably a juvenile, species tbd. Below:

Below: A beautiful sea anemone with a lone anemonefish

For more pictures from this beautiful dive, please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TGXzYeVPSURYQr3K6 Those that know me won't be surprised that I had a regular stop at the boat's bar after the last dive of the day. A chilled beer is just the thing for my parched throat after breathing lots of dry nitrox on multiple dives Below: