Librarian in New Zealand and New Caledonia: Finally got in the water early this morning

I got up at 6 am this morning and ate a light breakfast that had been delivered to my room the day before. It was actually quite good. I then put on my wetsuit, drove up to the top of a cliff to hike down the path to Gemstone Bay to snorkel. I had hoped to get in the water a couple other places earlier in the trip. I was either blown out by the weather or not able to stay in the area because every single room had been booked. More about that my hotel adventures in a separate post.

The water did not look too inviting and the sun was behind the clouds, but I got in anyway. The visibility was poor, and I was not seeing a single fish even though I had been told there would be lots of fish. I got the scoop on where to go from the local dive shop. They were very nice, but this is the off season, so they weren't taking groups out. They did loan me a couple weights so I could dive down to take photos while wearing a wetsuit. Of course, this was my warm water wetsuit that I used in Palmyra so it was a bit chilly. The water temeratures here are closer to those found in California. It even started to rain. I was beginning to think it was a bust and started to head back to shore when I started seeing fish. Even though the viz wasn't good, I managed to get a few good photos. The first one is of a large snapper who stayed with me for the rest of the snorkel. He was probably about 3 feet long.

There were only two guests where I was staying, so they had no problem with me doing a late check-out. This allowed me to go back to my room after my snorkel adventure and jump in the shower with all my gear to rinse it off. My room had a nice back porch where I could lay it all out to partially dry before I packed it up to hit the road.

Here are the highlights of the photos I took.