Day Eleven: Wreck of the “El Aquila”, project dive, and night dive
We started out another beautiful day with a dive on the wreck of the “El Aquila”, a 220 foot cargo ship that was sunk as an artificial reef just outside the reef opening from the marine lab. The wreck has been on the bottom for 12 years and is starting to get some good growth on it. There was a large sand flat by the stern that had 100’s of brown garden eels in it. After the wreck dive, the students got their materials together and we did dive one of the three coral project dives. The seas were so calm today that you could not even see the waves on the reef (and hot too). This evening a number of the students did their last night dive. It turned out to be one of the most spectacular dives ever. In addition to seeing a toad fish, spotted moray eel, lots of lobster, an octopus, and other night organisms, when we reach the mooring line, we turned off our lights during the safety stop and there was a fantastic bio-luminance light show that looked just like the scene out of the movie “Abyss” (minus the butterfly creatures). It is hard to believe we will be heading back in only four days.