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Published: March 22nd 2011
Today's Dive Plan
Loved seeing this every morning!Another beautiful, clear, sunny Caribbean day. Can't complain about a thing.
Also, another delicious breakfast, homemade muffins with cinnamon, yum, & delicious fresh squeezed juice. And always good company.
Our first dive this morning was Keper's Bluff. It is the most perfect conditions today. The sea is so calm that Rio was saying it was 1 inch swells. It was perfect & beautiful. As usual, we saw a handful of fish that we had never seen before. The reef here is just so alive & so stunningly beautiful. I guess that's why we're still here. We were going to leave this morning but Rio cut us a deal & it wasn't too hard to talk us into staying. We have decided to stay here & skip Roatan. I think it's worth it. The reef can't be beat & it's so fun to be the only divers & have our two DM's all to ourselves. It gives us so much more freedom on the dives without a crowd of people. So, here we are still... 😊 Yippee!!
We did our surface interval on the boat sitting in the middle of the super calm ocean. It was really hot &
sunny but felt good. Rio was cracking us up because as the boat captain he had to sit in the sun & wait for us for hours. So, he brought an umbrella. It's pink, with flowers. So we were all having a good laugh about it. Plus, to top it off he reuses a wine bottle as his water bottle. So he sits there with his book, his pink umbrella, & his wine bottle. He's quite a sight. For sure.
Our next dive was Big Kev's. We saw a Large Eye Toadfish here. Those guys are funny looking. There were a couple of swim throughs & just another beautiful dive. Because these guys dive here all the time, they are so good at spotting the little creatures & showing them to us. It's so fun! The seas picked up a bit after the second dive, we had 6 inch swells...
The ride home on the boat was beautfiul. We passed Cochino Pequeno & all the little tiny Cayos out here. There's one tiny little Cay that Survivor Italy is filming on. It's funny because the island is super small & every time we drive by the people are
Rio & his parasol.
That's a fabulous look Rio! all standing on the same little stretch of beach. Their supply boat is about 300 feet away too. Not super serious survivors I guess.
Back home a quick shower & lunchtime. There's a Japanese couple here who are math teachers. The girl, Chioko (spelled like it sounds, I don't know how she spells it) is diving with us. Another fantastic lunch & quality time looking at the Reef Book & talking about what we saw down there. I love love those books! They have pics of the coral varieties, fish, creatures. It is so fun to look through them & identify what you just saw on your dive. Awesome!
Already time for our afternoon dive. Time flies too fast when you are diving & having fun! Our afternoon dive was really cool. We went to a site called "El Avion" because there is a little plane sunk there that crashed in the water about 10 years ago. The story of how the crash happened is kinda funny. Apparently it was a National Geographic photography team flying around Cayos Cochinos taking pictures for a story. They flew over a small boat (perhaps a kayak) that had a couple on
it who were lying out nude. The pilot & crew decided to fly over for a couple of passes to get a good look & on one pass they got a little too close & plane stalled & crashed into the water! Everyone on board was ok but Yikes, imagine explaining that one to your boss!
The plane was really neat to see. There was a huge French Angelfish who clearly lives inside the body of the plane. Every window I would swim by he would show up & stare at me through the window, basically saying "this is my plane! Stay out!." I was cracking up. Especially when he sat in the front window as though he was the pilot of the plane. Too funny. We also saw a baby Scrawled Cowfish. Probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. He was maybe 3 inches long but looked like a miniaturized version of the adult. Soooo cute!!! Mike got it on film & I cannot wait to see it! It's so fun seeing life in action under the water. I love every second of it. With all this diving, we are both becoming much more skilled divers, which
is also fun. The work involved in maintaining buoyancy & moving around has become less & less.
The seas were no longer so flat. The afternoon wind, that always comes, had arrived. But it was still a great dive. Another thing I love about diving here is that the majority of their dive sites are within minutes of the dock. They are literally surrounded by amazing reef. So, we headed home & were there in minutes. Love it! After showering off the salt water, we were in need of some rest time. We've done 3 big dives today already & plan to do a night dive off the dock as well. Nap time for sure!
We had another lovely dinner & then, with full bellies, went out on the dock to do our night dive. I'm super excited because of all the things they have seen in the past on night dives! The reef around the dock only goes to about 20 feet but it is full of life, as we know from yesteday's Dorkel. The night dive was probably one of the my favorite dives so far. We saw at least 4 Octopi (spelling???). One of the
Octopus we saw came all the way out of his hole & was soooo pissed off with us shining a light on him that he splayed himself out all over the reef & puffed up & changed color about six times before retreating into a tiny whole. He went from brown to bright blue to orange to a bunch of mixed colors. It was by far one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. When he spread his body out he must have covered about 2 feet of area with just his body & not including all of his legs splayed out. We were all within a couple of feet of him & it was Awesome!! We also saw a Spotted Moray Eel swimming through the sea grass & several Lobster out & about, instead of hiding in their holes. The second best thing we saw was a pair of Sea Hares mating in the grass. They were sooo cute & looked cartoonish with their coloring. It was incredible. Apparently, in many years they have only seen Sea Hares a couple of times so we were very lucky! There was a bunch of phosphoresence too. We headed back
to the dock & all the guys went in and watched my light from above. I stayed down by myself (scary!) & checked out all the fishies & creatures living under & around the dock. It was super fun until I turned around & was face to face with the resident Barracuda who is about 3 feet long. He followed me around for a bit & then disappeared. Then I got nervous. Probably because Mike had told me a story about how Barracuda like to sometimes bump people with their noses just to see what happens, because they are super curious fish. Plus they are attracted to light & I was the only light in the ocean at the time. It was all I could think about so I had to get out. Darnit.
When I got out of the water Geoff, Rio, & Caleb were drinking glasses of Crown Royal. After getting cleaned up we headed to the bar/restaurant & had a few drinks with all the guys. It was fun. We were all so excited from the dive & how much we had seen. There was a lot of happy energy in the room. We did a
lot of talking, laughing, & some drinking. The boys did a lot of talking about business. Rio is taking over & planning to make some changes. There was a lot of discussion about where to head with the resort.
We were pretty beat after 4 dives in one day so we didn't last too long but it was a very fun end to an incredible day.
I'm not sure much can top that day for me. The Caribbean Reef Octopus alone was the most incredible thing I have probably ever seen. I felt like I was watching National Geographic. I almost had to pinch myself to remind myself I was right there with it!
It didn't take us long to fall asleep in our comfy bed that night.
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Carly Richardson
non-member comment
Cute!!!!! That is a keeper!