I went out diving Sunday morning with Jo and Matty from Fisheye. I think they're the only dive operator that's up and running right now. They put an ad in the paper Friday and had 11 people onboard Sunday morning. Three of them were open water students. I think some other dive operations are ready to be up and running, but aren't because their staff is on vacation/holidays/sanding hulls.

We left from Public Beach (where Calico Jack's Beach Bar is still standing) and went up to Trinity Caves. I took a bunch of pictures OF Trinity Caves, but they didn't turn out too well (available light in steep canyons 60 feet down doesnt make for good digital photos). Visibility was excellent, and the seas were so calm you could look straight down from the boat and see the dive site plain as, well, day.

Inside the main tunnel

On descending, I went around the big rock at the beginning of the main cave. It's somewhat mushroom-shaped now, because a lot of sand at it's base has shifted away, revealing coralline structure that hasn't seen the light of day in literally years. Into the main tunnel, the depth is now 65 feet, where it used to be around 55 feet. You can see the line where the sand used to be. It looks like a high-water mark, because the coral is whiter below the line. I took a right and went into the secondary tunnel and went all the way through to the end. You used to not be able to do that, you had to take a left back into the main tunnel about halfway through. Back in the main tunnel, you used to have to ascend at the end of it and come out on the wall about five feet up. Now you can swim straight out underneath that blockage and onto the wall. I didn't do that though, I took a right through the little doghouse-sized tunnel right at the end. I'd been through that tunnel before as well, but it was a tight, dark, little tunnel and did not take customers/students through it. Now it's big enough to float comfortably through it without touching bottom or hitting the top with your tank.

Black Coral near the pinnacle

Out on the wall, I hung a Louie and headed for the pinnacle. Clear, clear water down to about 250-300 feet. Saw some Oceanic Triggerfish hangin around, but no rays or sharks. Around the pinnacle used to be 5 or 6 different colored “bushes” of Black Coral. A few of them are nothing but stumps now, but a couple of them look to be OK.

Back through the southernmost tunnel, there's one archway that you swim under, and it has a piece of coral hanging down that looks like the dangly thing at the back of your throat. Used to be that it was a fairly tight squeeze to go under it, and beside the dangly thing, but now, like the other small tunnel, there's more room to get through.

Back out into the sand flats, there were some critters around. I didn't see too much in the way of wreckage on this dive site, which is good. We hung out for a safety stop and then climbed back on board and headed to Chain Reef, just a short ride away.