This was a great weekend of diving, a weekend of firsts! Sunday, I went on my first boat dive, which was pretty exciting in itself, but I also had the pleasure of viewing my first sharks: 4-5 white tip reef sharks! Anyone who has been diving in Okinawa knows sharks are pretty rare, so I felt very privileged to see so many.

On Monday, I did three dives - two day and one night dive. The two day dives were at a location new to me, known as the "Toilet Bowl". You huff it down some lava rock to a shelf that sits several feet above the water and long stride into a depth of 10-15 feet. From there, it rapidly drops off to approximately 140 feet.

This was also a dive of firsts as a buddy pointed out our first sea turtle! This fellow was about 1 to 1.5 feet in length and was happy to come in close and personal before he took us for a bit of a leisurely swim!

Outside of the turtle, the site was abundant with all types of coral, tons of anemone and their clown fish counterparts, angel fish, trumpet fish, eels, lion and scorpionfish... You name it! By the end of the first dive, the site rocketed its way to the top of my favorites list.

For our night dive, we went to a place called "The Junkyards" where I had dived once before during my Night Diver cert. The two buddies I took with me had never been to this particular location.

Not to be outdone by my previous dives of the weekend, this dive obliged me with my first view of a Blue Ring Octopus - fairly rare in these parts. My dive instructor has logged over 700 dives on the island and only seen two! I had a few close encounters that had me screaming like a little girl as well... It was a reoccuring theme - I would turn to look at something and the second I would turn around again, I would have some sort of critter about 2 inches from my mask! Close encounters included a 4 foot sea snake, a bright red trumpetfish, as well as a couple others.

All in all, it was an amazingly perfect weekend for diving! I can`t wait to return to these spots!!!