Diving St Maarten

After way too long without being able to scuba dive, we jumped right back underwater as soon as we were back on island! We were able to do several dives over the few weeks we were on island, all with the great team at Octopus Diving :) We did the family discover dives I posted about in the previous post, we did some exploration dives, and some wreck dives. I also was able to get Nitrox Certified!

By far the best moment on any dive (ever, not just this trip) was 5 minutes into the first dive at the Fuh Sheng wreck, a dolphin showed up!!! It did some circles around our group, played around a bit, left and then came back again for me to get the perfect picture with it!! I tried so many times to see a dolphin on a dive when we lived on island, going whenever dolphins had been spotted frequently, even once people on the boat saw them but we didn't underwater. So it was such a highlight to see a dolphin 5 minutes in on the first dive back at our island home!

That same dive, between dolphin appearances, a black tip reef shark came to check us out. On the Porpoise wreck, we saw tons of huge lobsters, barracuda, a sting ray, a turtle, lion fish, puffer fish, and trunk fish. On the exploration dives, also our first drift dives, there were so many corals and fans, a couple of swim throughs, lobsters, schools of fish, and we saw a few cuttlefish! Owen enjoyed the exploration dives the most.

It was great to be back underwater, one of my favorite places to be :) I miss living on a tropical island, being able to scuba dive with friends whenever we want. Thanks Chris and Sally for always providing a great dive experience! Wish we were on island still! As always, I've included a few pictures and posted more at SXM Diving. Enjoy!         

Favorite diving moment/picture ever!

Black Tip Reef Shark

Owen with the shark in the back

Pufferfish

Stingray

Trunk Fish

Hawksbill Sea Turtle

Barracuda

Flamingo Tongue Snail

Lion Fish

So many lobsters hiding out together

Cuttlefish