First Dives with Theia, Monday February 10 and Tuesday February 11

I came down with a cold while Donna and I were staying at Bandos so when we boarded Theia two days later I wasn't ready to immediately dive. So, I skipped the first day of diving, while Donna made one of the three dives. The second day, February 10, I made the second of three dives at a site called Moofushi Kandu and it was a great dive with lots of mantas, a beautiful baby Eagle Ray (I wasn't close enough to photograph it as it made its way through a team of divers). Lots of mantas, below:

Audry gets a couple manta shots, below:

Above: Manta with school of Goatfish.

While hovering near the Manta Cleaning station I spotted this beautiful Peacock Rock Cod, a small grouper, and managed to get a picture of him, below:

I made two dives on February 11th as I continued to gradually recover from my cold, which, fortunately, stayed mild. I was pleased to frequently see nice sized grouper of different species on most dives, though usually not close enough to get a good picture. But I'm pleased that they aren't fished out at these dive sites. Below, a Four Saddled Grouper:

Below: First photo, Blue Trevally Jacks, second photo, beautiful Giant Moray (this one wasn't real large, later in the trip we say one that lived up to its name)

When I saw Audry stop and photo a small subject on a patck of marine algae I knew she had spotted a special speceies of Ghost Pipefish, the Halimeda, known also as the Coralline Ghost Pipefish, about 2 inches long, so a challenge to photo with my 10-17 mm Tokina wide angle lens. It is found only it patches of the green Halimeda marine algae you can see in the pictures, below:

A beautiful, appropriately named, Blue Faced Angelfish, below:

Below: Squirrelfish

I love photographing fish on cleaner stations where they are getting cleaned by cleaner wrasses or cleaner shrimp. Below are photos of a Sweetlips, Parrotfish, and another Giant Moray getting cleaned by cleaner wrasse:

To see more photos from these three dives, please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NZuFAgr8gzyBAGtw5 After February 11 I was able to begin diving the boat's full three dives a day schedule for Feb 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. The final day of diving was the 17th and I made just the first of the final two dives..