This morning saw a two dive day for this half of the Toronto Scuba Club. Opening the door and peeking out after a cup of Joe (and what a cup of Joe.....Roatan-grown coffee beans from here in Honduras, simply delicious), saw a miserably grey sky. Ahh well, I thought, I'll be underwater for most of the morning anyway. Of course, a grey sky would make the visibility a little less in all likelihood and make for more mellow hues to the dive, but c'est la vie.
Then we started out at about 9....and the sun gloriously burst into my Honduran sky in fantastic technicolour. It was stunning....one second it was grey all over, then in the next it was dazzling....not a cloud in the sky, the sunlight glinting off the ocean, Roatan looking green behind us and a soft and gentle breeze teasing my hair......romantic? sure....but bloody perfect for a dive day!
And bloody perfect it was. The first dive was to about 90 feet out along a wall and then relaxing at about 50 for the last little stretch. The dive was about 55 minutes and just great. SO MANY lionfish! I know they're a pest these days, taking over massive stretches of ocean, but they are still so freaky cool looking. We saw four regular lionfish for the area, but also managed to spot a cool little black fella too.
On top of that, there were a couple of small morays hanging out in nooks in the wall, as well as some arrow crabs:
and a whole bunch of other little dudes. I also spotted the obligatory lobsters and a crab....oh, yeah, we also found some weird miniscule little flounder guy who looked like a leaf, it was cool. Thank god for the sun, it was nice to have the light, easpecially a bit further down.
Then we hit the shore for a little breather at Cocoview resort. A quick drink and a surface interval and we were ready to hit the Prince Albert....a hundred feet off the shore from our pit stop.
And another awesome dive!! The sun remained nice and bright....
As we sank down onto the wreck, the fauna started playing for us immediately....a couple of barracuda swam along with us as we descended to 50 feet in a few seconds. And then we were straight by the prow of the Albert. Where a few lobsters waved hello. We swam alongside the boat, spotting some rockfish nestled against it, taking a peak inside (even to say hi to a puffer fish chilling out inside) and then we were about to head off when I saw one of the largest morays I have ever seen hiding as much as possible right under the bottom of the boat. The dive leader came back to my waving and had a look...initially he thought I was looking at a cluster of really large arrow crabs, but then he spotted it....this moray had to be about at least two feet wide....massive.
This was in fact the dive for morays.....we saw five monster eels at various points of the dive (about 60 feet for an hour). On top of that, I saw a frogfish...difficult to spot and according to the resident marine biologist (one of their instructors just became one of the island's leading marine biologists) very very rare. We identified it as a dwarf frogfish, who was happily hanging out on a sea fan. After checking out the wreck (and an airplane fuselage with crowds of hermit crabs scuttling about in an insane version of a line dance), we took off to finish off the dive with more wall (where I actually spotted the frogfish) and then ended on the shallow reef where we chased a lobster. Here's my little friend:
A great day diving. Tomorrow's a day off....this intrepid diver is off to see monkeys and rainforest aqnd grab a quick zipline. Back to diving on Wednesday (two in the morning and a night dive), Thursday we take an excursion to the west side of the island) and then last two dives on Friday.....I'll be back tomorrow.
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