After a week-end of eating Pasta, Sushi and Yum-Cha -  the latter courtesy
of Poe and Cynthia, that was outstanding, both for the food and the
company - I went diving with Janet on Sunday morning.  (Julian still hasn't
returned from the UK - where his father died recently - and he was missed.)

The water - over the past two weeks - has warmed up from  16 deg. C. to
19-20 Deg. C.

The sea had risen from the flat calm of Saturday to a lumpy state, but it
still looked blue and clear.

Considering our - at least two dives a week together over the last year -
relative slow down in diving, we just decided to drift down the left-hand
side of Cabbage Tree Bay.  Janet hadn't had time to check the wet-suit
zippers so wore a dry-suit - always the limiting factor in our dives, 'cause
they're driven by her need to pee!  :-)))

We saw a fairly large - 2-metre wing-span - eagle ray, early on in the dive,
and onother twice the size later on :  A porcupine fish - whose eyes are as
soulful as cows; played with a cuttlefish and an octopus; petted the many
eastern blue grouper that swam up to us demanding to be petted after our
lengthy absence; a large wobbegong sheltering under a rock; a sea-hare -
very large and, despite a litle prodding from me, unwilling to race away!
Sea-pike and several nudibranchs, (Janet knows their scientific names ...
they just looked like colourful slugs to me!)  :-)

After the dive, we both agreed that just being there - and swimming slowly
along - was worth getting out of bed for!  (Janet, btw, got out of Tricky's
bed, and I got out of mine and Sylvia's!)  :-)))

Strike