The coolest action was the mating olive sea snakes. They were crazy - coiling around each other, chasing around bommies, tongues going in and out...The female, we assume it was the female anyway, didn't appear to be nearly as interested as the smaller male was. She took him on a merry chase and he did his best to keep up. Finally she ducked under a ledge, rummaged around and shot out the other side. Mr. Sea Snake was still looking for her under the ledge, then gave up, shot out at about 200mph - straight into the side of Ross's fin. It was so funny to watch! The snake shook it off then happily wandered off...in the wrong direction.
Sea snakes were by far the most entertaining of the dive. I watched another small one come back down after being on the surface for a breath. He came straight down on top me then started poking the enormous bull ray - easily 6 feet wingtip to wingtip - who was nosed up under a big bommie until the ray had enough and swam off, sea snake riding along with him.
The water in the Gulf is nice and chilly - only 22C! You wouldn't think that a couple of degrees would make that much difference but it sure does to me. I wasn't too cold for most of the dive but when I'd try to move around to get a better shot, water would trickle down my back and I'd give the shot a miss. I am a wuss really! As I was heading back to the boat - visions of nice warm towels and trackie pants dancing in my head - when I got buzzed by a very pretty batfish. He bobbled around me for a couple of minutes before heading a little deeper down the line. It was a really nice way to end the dive.
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