26 Mar 2026
If I had been thinking yesterday, I would have returned my tank later in the day and just picked up today’s tank at the same time (the rental period is 24 hours), but that idea didn’t come to me until late at night, when the traffic noise was still keeping me awake and I was dreading this morning’s alarm.
Oh well, at least I found some breakfast cake 🙂
I did have to wait a bit for my tank as they were checking in the morning boat’s divers and I once again wondered if maybe I should ask if there’d be room for me to join, but ultimately decided against it. I really didn’t enjoy the boat dives I’ve done here in the past. I can find enough things to do back at my room to keep me busy until it’s tide time, like hanging out on our pier, seeing if the squid or any other fun critters are around. Unfortunately, the water’s looking pretty murky today- can’t see the bottom! But the sun’s rays are hitting it just right for a fun aura effect on my shadow:
Visibility when I started my dive was 5, maybe 7 feet… shoot. I mean, navigation here is pretty easy, so I’m not worried about getting lost, but I can’t see any of the landmarks I’ve gotten to know, so finding fun critters might be tricky. I decided to spend some time hunting up and down the pillars under the bridge looking for little things, like these blennies with some stellar eyebrows:
I feel like usually blennies are quite skittish, but these guys tolerated me for longer than I expected.
Crab hiding at the base of a pillar:
Wee filefish!
Small porkfish (and a fireworm under that coral):
French grunts:
Sergeant major guarding its nest:
Sharpnose puffer:
Fringed filefish:
Ocean surgeonfish:
(vis improved a bit after I moved south of the bridge- still not great, but better)
Lounging star:
Flounder!
I thought at first that bottom shell was switching homes, but there’s someone in top shell too!
Scrawled cowfish:
Someone’s eggs… couldn’t find the egg-layer though 🙁
Can you find the flounder?
(I only saw him because he moved)
This parrotfish was swimming around in the “chomping” position:
Normally anemones are on wall or piles of rubble or otherwise surrounded by some sort of structure- this guy was chilling by himself on the algae covered bottom:
Another filefish!
I don’t know what these sergeant-majors were picking at, but there was a whole swarm of them:
The grassy area is very shallow- 4-6′, so this is a terrible place for this urchin:
Another egg spiral with no sign of the egg-layer:
Found another green mantis shrimp!
and the tiniest filefish ever- he was about the size of a quarter!
and another flounder, who was easier to spot because of his… unibrow? mustache?
Sand perch trying to decide if he should dart away from me:
Green razorfish:
Juvenile sand perch:
A surprisingly colorful little crab:
Usually they’re either in a divot or have their shell tipped forward so you can’t really see their bodies.
This little jawfish would not come back out after I startled him:
The flag I had to tow along with me, which wasn’t fun, but also wasn’t terrible:
Occasionally the current would pull it around one side of a pillar and I’d have to swim back around to get it back, and when I went into the shallows, I definitely did not reel it in fast enough (or at all, sometimes I got lazy), so it would float far away and bump into swimmers and snorkelers (though sometimes I would have it right above me and they’d get tangled in it anyway). And once while I was reeling it in, the slack in the line tried to tangle around my camera. But it’s a small price to pay for the freedom to dive my own dive.
And now begins my least favorite task: trying to get all my gear to dry before I need to pack up tomorrow!
I’ve eaten through most of the food I picked up earlier in the week, so I treated myself to a feast of fish tacos, pretzel bites and pie:
Some of this will probably become a bedtime snack later (or a midnight snack when I can’t sleep), but it all sounded good.
One final sunset of the trip:
Goodnight, Palm Beach!