Our third diving holiday to Cocos, in February 2004, again saw calm sea conditions and generally sunny weather. Unfortunately we saw even less hammerheads than in 2003 but nevertheless it was a highly enjoyable holiday with some special moments.

We saw mating whitetip reef sharks, had several encounters with mobula rays and also watched hundreds of hunting whitetips during the Manuelita Island night dives.

As is usual, the divers were split into two groups, the Blue and Gold teams. Maldives Scuba Tours had booked half of the available spaces on this trip and the "MST divers" formed the Blue team. Having purchased an Olympus C5050 digital camera and underwater housing for my Maldives December 2003 trip, I had subsequently acquired two Inon D-180 strobes and I was keen to try out the new setup for the first time. Fortunately for me, John Kearney and Bill Burdock, two fellow Blue Team underwater photography enthusiasts were happy to pass on advice and tips which I found very helpful and I greatly enjoyed our postdive "camera club" chats. In addition John and from the Gold team, Stuart Schooley and Christine Powaser, happily swopped "surface photographs" with me and I have cheekily added a few of these to this website, for example the photograph that Stuart took of Eve with his wife, Jane.

Once again Captain Roger Eliasson, Divemasters Mario Arrayo and Miguel Sanchez and the rest of MV Sea Hunters crew had ensured that all of the passengers had a great time - this is a trip I could happily repeat year after year!