Up early again. I was tired, but a lot of the Austrians looked a lot worse (they had a late night drinking) - several skipped the first dive. The morning dive was at Ariyadhu Beyru and was supposed to>be a good place to manta rays. It was a good dive, but there were no mantas to be seen. The highlights were a bunch of lobsters, and a smallish green turtle. For me the best part was seeing a giant turtle surface next to the dive dhoni on the way back to the boat - it's shell must have been at least four feet long!
Today's schedule was a repeat of yesterday'sa After breakfast I spent the rest of the morning on my photos and journal. The second dive was at Dhidhu Corner and wasn't so so nice. There was a lot of rubbish and no whale sharks to be seen - the reason we were diving there. I did discover a new fish though. When I showed it to Surga (our divemaster - who has done more than 4,000 dives in the Maldives) and he said he's never seen anything like it. Furthermore I couldn't find anything even close in the reef guides. At the end of the dive I came up with tons of air because I was getting bored and cold.
I wasn't going to do the third dive, but when we got to the anchorage there was another boat just leaving and they'd just gotten out of the water after having seen a whale shark! So I changed my mind and in I went. It was a good dive, much nicer than the last one, but once again no whale sharks. I did see a bunch of white tip reef sharks (six of them) and a some turtles. Two of the turtles behaved very strangely - they were curious about me, and only me. The first one came straight at me then circled me four or five times less than a foot away - it made me dizzy trying to follow it, and was to close to take more than close up photos. The second one behaved almost the same way, came straight at me and then swam parallel to me about a foot away, watching me the whole time. They both swam at my front, maybe they were interested in the yellow color of my camera? It was very cool though.
Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on deck reading. After dinner I tried to do some more work but didn't make it very late as I was exhausted!
