Birthday Weekend on Black Coral

Hey everyone,

I've been getting some requests for some more pictures and some stories from everyone back at home. The requests came at the perfect time because I have some awesome pictures to put up here.
This past weekend a group of us traveled out to Black Coral which is a very small island on the barrier reef surrounding Pohnpei. It is one of a few protected reefs around the island. It is protected because it is a grouper spawning area. I spent almost all of my time in the water enjoying the pristine snorkeling which you will see from all of the underwater pictures. I saw the most fish that I have ever seen while snorkeling. Just to name a few... I saw schools of barracuda, trevalley, sharks, parrot fish.... It was the most amazing snorkeling I've ever seen. The channel was about 20 feet deep and had a sandy bottom that made it great for snorkeling. The visibility was almost perfect. Here are a few pictures from the channel.








The channel at Black Coral was really awesome but the ocean was even better. If you swam out of the channel into the ocean you got to see bigger fish and a lot more than in the channel. Once you swim out into the ocean you can see the drop off into the abyss. The depth of the water goes from about 85 feet to over 1000 feet. These drop offs are the best place to see big fish.
On the way to the drop off I saw white tipped and black tipped reef sharks. Here are a few pictures of the sharks. These were all between 4-6 feet long.
There is also a picture of me underwater.












Once I reached the drop off I saw some of the gray reef sharks. There were about 5 of them swarming around in circles at about 100 feet. If you look in the background of the last picture you can see the bigger gray reef sharks. Some of the sharks were around 6-7 feet long!!
This last picture was taken at around 50 feet. I've been practicing free diving for the past few months and I have been able to reach between 80-85 feet. This last picture is the only reference that I can give you to showing the depth that I can dive now. I was able to touch the coral that is in the following picture. I guessed that the depth was around 80 feet?! It is pretty awesome being down that deep. However, it is also pretty scary. It seems like an eternity emerging from the depths. It seems as if the surface is never getting any closer. Pretty crazy. The current world record for a free dive is 122m which is 400 feet!! I have no ambition of reaching that crazy depth but the free diving is making spear fishing much easier. If you can get down to the deeper water..you can get the bigger fish.




I hope everyone enjoys the pictures! I also wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes and packages. Talk to you soon and have a great Thanksgiving.

Tyler