Cayos Cochinos Day 2

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It is so peaceful here. Listening to the waves break at the shore from our room is really really nice.

Breakfast was delicious: scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, beans, tortillas, good coffee. They make everything here from scratch. The bread, the juice, yummy! It's fun to sit at a big table with everyone too. It definitely creates conversation & makes it fun.

This morning we waited for one of their boats to arrive from La Ceiba carrying their Dive Master & Instructor. They arrived & we got out on the boat to dive with them. Their names are Mike & Will & they are both British & super fun.

Our dive this morning was at "Lionshead." It was beautiful. It is amazing what a difference it makes to dive in an area that is protected. It is so evident. The reef, coral, fish, plants, everything is so alive & so vibrant & big! The reef around here is beautiful because a lot of it has sandy bottom with wall reef structures and/or coral pinnacles. We saw a Southern Stingray buried in the sand & you could really only see his eyes blinking. We saw lots of little Yellow Stingrays swimming around. One of my new favorite creatures is the Garden Eel. When you can see their faces they are just too cute. There are too many little amazing creatures we saw here. It's just really fantastic diving. We may never leave....
We headed back to the dock & cleaned up for lunch. Lunch was fun. We got to know Will & Mike better & heard about their adventures in Roatan for the weekend off work. Lunch of course was delicious. It sounds like this evening we will be the only guests here. Everyone else is leaving after lunch. Cayos Cochinos all for us! 😉

We spent some time looking at the Reef Books to ID what we'd seen earlier on our dive. I love love love those books & will have a set at home to remember all the creatures & fish we saw here. We played online a bit & worked on the blog & such. I pretty much just geeked out with the books & listed off all the cool things I want to see later today.

Our afternoon dive was at Pelican Point. It was just us & Mike & Will & Caleb, a DM in training. That is my favorite number of people dive, just us! The boat they are using now is really just a fishing boat because their dive boat is in dry dock getting an overhaul. It's quite cozy in these little boats, which is ok. Plus, we're learning how to put our dive gear on in the water which is a new skill for sure. The only bummer is there are these tiny, microscopic creatures called Pelagic Tunicates that hang out around the surface of the ocean & sting the hell out of you. It wouldn't be so bad if you could see them, but we've been getting stung numerous times at the beginning & end of every dive. They leave these little welts on your skin, but thank goodness the sting only lasts a few minutes. Pelagic Tunicates, little bastards! The dive is a wall dive & was spectacular of course. So much bright & colorful coral & sea sponges & creatures. Just amazing. These guys have been working here for awhile & know the reef well. They pointed out all kinds of interesting things to us. Then we headed back towards the boat & they surfaced & let us play in the shallows (20ft) until we were almost out of air. I love almost using up my air. I feel a bit cheated on most dives because I usually surface with 1/3 of my tank left. Here, I've been using as much as I can safely use. Love it! Mike brought his underwater video camera on this dive. He makes videos for people & he set up the website for the hotel. He's taking some footage to talk us into buying a video. It's probably going to work. Shoot.

Back home & they dropped us off on the "House Reef" which is basically the bay that the hotel sits on. We got new tanks & swam around the reef for some time. It was really shallow, at most 20ft, but it was cool. We saw a huge turtle that just sat there & stared at us. She didn't seem too concerned with our presence. She was beautiful. Apparently her name is Martha and she's a local resident. I'm pretty sure I saw an Octopus but he jumped into a hole so fast all I could see was his eye staring out at me. Sneaky guys for sure. It was fun. Lot's of fish including a baby blue tang living in an old Adidas tennis shoe. We swam over to the dock & got out there with Mike & Will waiting for us. They said they sat on the dock & watched our bubbles move around. We totally did not follow their directions on where to go but I think it's because we were distracted by the turtle. They were laughing at us though because we were pretty shallow.

After a hot shower & a little nap time we headed down to the common area to watch the sunset. Sadly, I had sudden onset migraine & just made it through the sunset & had to go to bed. I tried to stay up but my head wouldn't allow it. Sad day. I took a bunch of meds to try & kill the headache & slept. Geoff had a fun time with the guys, lots of stories & boy talk. It was just him, Jack (owner), Rio (his son & manager), Mike, Will, & Caleb. Geoff brought me up a plate of dinner but I just needed to sleep off the headache. Blech.

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Photos

On our way to dive Lionshead.
Geoff & Whitney & Mike.

Map of the island.
You are here = the big pink shell on the left.

The pathway up to our room.
Where we saw the same lizard running along the path every day, almost every time we walked it.

Our room.
Our first King size bed, since home....

Open air bathroom.
Looking in from our patio.

Lunch!
Set out buffet style on the bar. Yum!

Reef books on the bar.
Coffee station to the right next to the water cooler.