St. Croix - Sea Horses?

Kevin and I spent all kinds of money on dive equipment so that we could dive whenever/wherever we wanted, and we still seem to always end up paying to go with a dive shop and instructor. St. Croix has an overwhelming number of dive sites, many of which are accessible from the beach, so we decided that for sure we would dive on our own here. So on Wednesday morning we loaded our gear into the rental car and drove over to Cane Bay (on the north side of the island).

We could tell right away that this was a very popular spot. We kept seeing groups of divers crossing the road in full dive gear, walking down the beach, and then disappearing into the water. We donned our gear and headed out. The wall is about 50 yards out from the beach, so we snorkeled over there so as not to waste any dive air. Swimming with 30 pounds of gear on your back is not recommended. I was exhausted by the time we got over there and then I noticed some other divers who were actually swimming backwards so that their tanks were floating under them instead of on their backs. Clever. And much, much easier. When I finally caught my breath we descended next to a marker buoy showing where the wall begins. Right at the bottom was a strange sight. Someone had installed a carousel horse down there. The pole was embedded in the sand and the horse just looked so absurd -- I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera along on the dive. The rest of the dive was good, lots of big corals and sponges but we didn't get to see any actual sea horses -- too bad. We had a bit of a scare when one of the other divers who was down there decided to spear a fish with his spear gun. I looked around and realized that there was at least one other diver who was also swimming around, spear gun at the ready. Holy crap, isn't diving an exciting enough sport as it is? These guys were spearing fish and waving around the bloody bodies as though they were *trying* to attract the attention of some hungry shark. Idiots. Plus, it's just dirty pool to use the advantage of being able to breathe underwater to kill fish. It doesn't seem as sporting as if they were free diving. Anyway, we swam as far and as fast away from the bloodbath as we could.

When we finished the dive, we were going to eat lunch while our tanks were being refilled, but as it turns out both tanks were due for a visual inspection and the dive shop wouldn't fill them without it. The lady said the tanks would be ready the next day, so we left them there and headed back to our boat. We were relaxing in the cockpit after finishing the chore of rinsing down all the dive gear. I noticed something very odd in the water. I pointed and asked Kevin, "Is that...a horse?" Sure enough, somebody was swimming laps around the anchored boats while pulling a horse (the equestrian kind) around the water behind him. I think it's a method for training or rehabilitation. Since then, we've seen "Seabiscuit" out there swimming every afternoon, so today I went out there with the telephoto lens and hopefully got a few good photos.