Our friends on Dorothy Rose got the truck again, and brought us north of Kralendijk to Tolo. Once you’re far enough north, the coastal road becomes one-way, and you’re committed to going all the way to Rincon. The road is pretty narrow, and this is nominally for safety, but we’re told that this was actually mostly about boosting tourism. Why aren’t there more pictures from out of the water, you ask? Because we’ve been told that leaving things in the car is unsafe, so dive days mean going without our trusty internet connected pocket-cameras.
But the GoPro comes down with us, so we have underwater pictures instead. Tolo has plenty of rugged hard coral, so it supports a wide variety of fish, like the big horse-eye jacks in the first picture… and the lionfish in the second.
There are also a number of very impressive tube sponges, including one from the shallower area that wins the award for most mature picture Andrew has ever taken.
Juvenile damselfish like to hang out in this finger coral, and duck and hide when approached. So we were lucky that this little guy’s hiding spot wasn’t as protected as it thought.
The shallower area has a couple of different ecosystems. Big fields of gorgonians thrive in one spot, and then suddenly transition into a big field of staghorn coral. For completeness, the third picture here shows an isolated piece of elkhorn coral. Stay strong little colony!
