Diving with the Pitkins

We were able to do 14 dives over the 2 weeks the Pitkins were out here and we saw a lot of neat stuff!  We saw a number of sharks, rays, turtles, fish, and an octopus or 2!  Here are some pictures of our dives.

Here is a picture of us from the front of our boat right before our first ocean side dive!  Ryan and Leisha had earned their diving certification in the Philippines earlier this year, so it was exciting to take them diving in the Marshall Islands.

This is right before descending on our first dive!  We are near the drop off, close to the island of Carlson! 

Here is Ryan waving to the camera!

Here is the octopus we saw, which was very friendly and photogenic!  It hunted over the reef and flashed its camouflage at us!  If Mindi hadn't seen it, everyone else would have swam right over it as it looked exactly like a piece of coral before it got comfortable with us and turned back to its normal red color.

Here is the octopus moving over the reef.  We all sat around it and watched for about 10 minutes until we had to surface.

Ryan and Leisha diving in the background of this coral!  This picture is near Emon Beach.

Here is a turtle that let us get pretty close to it.  Usually they swim away, but this one swam around us a few times really close!  It looks like something had been chewing on the back of its shell!

Here are Ryan and Leisha on the back of the Ski Boat Wreck just off of Kwaj.  We toured this sunken ship and saw the fish and coral that are taking it over!

We had a great time under water during the break and enjoyed all of the fun things that we saw!

Pictures from Pohnpei will be coming soon!