I had to do an advanced pretzel bend around some coral to get this picture. The lady who runs the dive shop at the resort hides behind coral heads and jumps put and pokes you with a lionfish spine if you touch any coral. I made that last part up, but it’s really bad to touch the coral, so I try real hard not to.Believe it or not, this guy is related to the seahorse. Not the seahorse from the earlier picture; I mean the seahorse family. OK, it’s almost 8:00 pm here, which is like 2:30 am in non-diving time. I’m getting worse at the descriptions. Let’s see how much longer I can type…You can see how well they hide.These things can poison you real good. Way more dangerous than a shark around here.Kind of gross and cool at the same time. It’s about 18 inches long and just kind of crawling along the bottom.This beast is probably over two feet long.This was cool. A big cone-shaped sponge with a ping sea star at the bottom.Robert is the divemaster on our boat. He has a cool skull cap (see what I did there?)
Day 2
Pretty much every dive starts with this picture. It’s a test to make sure my flash is set properly.These guys give the seahorses lessons in avoiding having their picture taken.I was swimming over the reef on top of the wall, when I passed over a big barrel sponge. Guess who I saw inside? It’s our old friend, Crabby McCraberson, the mayor of Crab Town.He was playing hard to get in his cave. This is the best I could do.No good, photo-bombing…This is a pretty big seahorse for these waters. I’d guess he’s about seven fingers high. That’s a horse joke.I think he had somewhere to be. I had to take this as he was running away.About six feet of coralAlways thinking ahead, David brought these little stuffed lionfish for everybody. Naturally, we tied them to our tanks, and then used the bamboo skewers and rubber bands that David also provided to hunt each others’ lionfish. Here he is taking aim at either Bob, or Bob’s lionfish – it’s hard to be sure which.I’m not really as surprised as I look – I’m just worried about David dropping my camera.That old brotherly thing comes out when there are sharp sticks around. Thus are new themed dives created. This is the first ever Lionfish Dive.David just couldn’t resist taking aim at a real lionfishI was too far away for the flash. This is the port side, pretty close to amidships.Maybe it’s not really a window, but it is a hole in the Prince Albert.Caldwell, that is, and he’s swimming through part of the underwater obstacle course they use for buoyancy trainingYour guess is as good as mine…I still haven’t been able to get the drop on one of these to take a decent picture.This one was easy to catch, because it was resting on a ledge, like turtles are supposed to do.Google it, if you don’t believe me.The book says they grow up to 3 feet. I’ve never seen one that big, but this one’s close.That’s Dennis making his way back to the boat. Dennis is the only person on our boat who’s not in our group. I’m not sure he’s having as much fun as we are, but he hasn’t begged to be put on another boat yet.I don’t think it’s good when it turns white.This guy had a nice spot in a little cave.Before each dive, Robert maps out the plan, and tells us what to expect. Then we jump in the water and pretty much do whatever we want. Really, we usually follow his guidance pretty closely, because he knows where all the cool critters hide.A couple of Honduran military aircraft flew over on our surface interval. We later heard that a small plane had gone down.This is where we sleepBob flexing before we do our last dive of the day. Note all the darkness outside the gear shed. This was our signature \”James Bond\” Dive, where we dive over to the neighboring resort, infiltrate their bar, and gather what intelligence we may before diving back to our place. Tonight shortly after arriving, we were approached by two employees of the bar, who invited us to \”participate\” in their \”music trivia contest\”. Bob immediately saw through their subterfuge, so we hightailed it back to their gazebo, where we had stashed our gear.
Day 3
Here’s the team just after jumping off the boat.As usual, this on is an expert at hiding. They make you do a headstand between pieces of fire coral to get a picture.We dove a cave-like crack in the wall this morning. It was dark, scary and really cool.I can’t help it – that’s really what it’s called. These fish were in there.At least I know what these fish are called.I took this right after we exited Calvin’s Crack. This picture broke my camera. Well, not really broken, but the little rubber nubbin that pushes the shutter release popped off. So this is the last underwater picture of the morning.I took this while lying on my back on the way to the bottom.Steve tried to introduce his plushie lionfish to some of the real thing. There was no blood, but I don’t think any real friendships were forged, either.This is a little better than the last picture, but still not great. It’s becoming a goal to get a good picture of one of these.Once again, the mad photo bomber strikes.You don’t usually see this part of an eel hanging out like this. When I took this, I couldn’t see his head.Still no head, but more of the body.Eventually, he turned enough to see his face.I was experimenting with using the flash to illuminate the foreground with divers in the background.If I had remote underwater strobes that I could hide behind the coral, I could get good colors on the divers too.This one is tucked in under a ledge, so this is as close as I could get. But really, that eye is weird. I don’t remember sharks’ eyes doing that in any other pictures.This is my new benchmark for an Indigo Hamlet picture. If this is the best I can get, I guess it’ll do.I always get a few of these pictures, so I can compare the bottoms to the tops. Waves always look smaller from the bottom.Bob was swimming under an overhang, so his bubbles were rising up through what looked the ground. Now, stop and let the mental image soak in a second… The bubbles come right through what looks like solid coral, and Bob is swimming under it. What could possibly go wrong?That’s a barrel sponge in the foreground.This guy hangs out on the wreck in the front yard. I found him on the porch under the wheelhouse.It’s just getting started.With even bigger claws.This was under another of the many overhangs on the CoCo View Wall. I’m not sure what they are, but there were a mess of them.I just pointed my camera into the dark and bushed the button. Every now and then, you get lucky.This yellowtail snapper was in a little grotto-ish cave in the side of the wall. Since we dive that wall at least once a day, I always peek in to see what might be hiding back there.This one was under a coral covered rock right where we do our safety stops for the dropoff dives. I think he got trapped under the rock when divers came by, so he was a bit stressed. He was snapping at fish that swam by, and twitching around. As soon as we left, he bailed out, and headed for a better shelter.This is in the 6 foot deep water between the safety stop and the beach.We saw one of Carnival’s ships coming into port this morning. That means we’ll be seeing boatloads of snorkelers on the Prince Albert this afternoon. UPDATE: We saw boatloads of snorkelers on the Prince Albert this afternoon.Since my underwater housing puked 15 minutes into the first dive this morning, I’ve got some more surface pictures. We spent our surface interval at a classy place right on the waterfront. They had refreshments and BOTH kinds of nachos: chicken AND lobster.The Hole in the Wall had hammocks right there in the bar David mastered the art of entering one while holding a cold beverage.You can see how busy this place gets at lunchtime. I wrote our name on the wall with a Sharpie.The mighty CoCo I at the dock at Hole in the Wall. I asked David to stay on board to keep an eye on things, but then we decided it probably wasn’t really necessary.This will be Calum’s new profile picture.It looks like a few Canadians come down here.Diving can be very stressful. Or at least tiring. It’s important to stay rested.David jumped in while we were drifting between dives. While he was off the boat, the crew handed out sliced watermelon. Calum declared a traditional Scottish game called \”Who can hit David with a watermelon rind?\” We enjoyed it more that David did. Eventually, Bob threw him a whole slice, so he could have a snack while dodging the rinds.This was swimming in the camera tank on the boat. Apparently, they often found in places where jellyfish live.Now, that’s a good inventory position… One empty and a whole pile of cans full of minty-fresh nitrox.
Day 4
We dove the wreck of a shrimp boat called \”Mr Bud\”. Here we are approaching in about 60 feet of water.This is some of the stuff growing on Mr Bud.This guy lives under the side of Mr. Bud. Maybe the boat still smells of shrimp.That’s Dennis leaning in the window. In this shot you can see a snapper, several species of coral and a boombox that somebody left on the skipper’s seat.David has mastered the technique of resting during available times, like while moving from one dive site to the next.It’s not unusual to hear a diver say, \”I was sitting on the bottom waiting for my buddies.\” In reality, NOBODY actually sits on the bottom. Calum is not bound by reality.This is my current candidate for picture of the week. Before the dive, Roberto told us in hushed tones that we would be looking for two frogfish that had been seen the day before. Apparently, it’s been several years since the last one was seen on the wall. Roberto got some good G2, because we weren’t 15 minutes into the dive when he found this guy sitting in a piece of coral. His camouflage is almost perfect, and he has a little dangly lure on the top of his head that he can wag in front of his mouth, so he really doesn’t have to move.This is the green frogfish that was about six feet from the white one. This guy is right out in the open, but he still matches his surroundings pretty well.The white one would occasionally \”Yawn\”, opening his mouth really wide. These are weird critters.No touching, because if you touch it, you will probably die. At least you’ll say a bunch of really bad words and cry a lot.He’s taking a picture of a… something on the wall. Maybe it’s something green.Swimming along, minding my own business, when suddenly, I was mauled by a huge flock of parrotfish. The screeching was deafening and their talons ripped my wet-suit to shreds. I got away lucky. The Honduran Coast Guard are still looking for any identifiable pieces of David. Yes, I’m kidding – they’re just fish. And I’m sure David’s around here somewhere.So how dangerous could it be?It’s that snakey-looking purple thing swimming between the coral. This led to a long discussion on the boat as to whether it was a Drain Pipefish, Crack Pipefish or Tail Pipefish. Divers are not known for their comedic prowess.It kind of looks like he’s about to be grabbed by the Kraken.This looked like a remora was trying to latch onto a parrotfish. The parrotfish was thrashing and dashing around, and the remora was doing its best to keep up. It was a bit like a fish rodeo, but without the horses. Or cowboys. Or bulls. Or clowns. OK, I know it wasn’t a rodeo.Finally a decent picture of one of these guys.It has a mouth and eyes, but all the black-on-black makes it hard to see.The Divemaster in training here identified this as \”Some kind of fish\”.Steve C. reviewing his photos in his improvised darkroom.I followed Schultz into Mr Bud. Here he is swimming through a doorway. We worked our way down to the engine room, and back out through the bow.David got to fulfill his dream of skippering a shrimp boat. He’s watching for dangerous weather on the horizon.Guess who’s back at his old tricks?Here he is without David.This is the best picture I’ve managed of one of these guys.This guy kept bouncing back and forth between swimming away from me on this side, and swimming away from Calum on the other side of those rocks. This is the best picture I could take because he never held still for long.This is one of the biggest trumpet fish I’ve ever seen.I took a picture from above, because it’s a different perspective on this kind of coral.These guys are the ultimate \”Get off my lawn!\” old men of the fish family. They build little round walls around their holes with rocks that they steal from neighboring jawfish. They also back into their hols if you get within about 6 feet of them. These are about three inches long, and it took me a good five minutes to sneak up on them without scaring them into their holes.Here’s Bob taking a picture of a sand diver. Bob is the one with the camera.This is the sand diver that Bob was taking a picture of.On the way back to the boat, we swam over Mr. Bud again, and there was a really pretty Queen Angelfish at the stern.Here’s Bob on the way back from Mr. Bud. This didn’t turn out badly considering it was too far away for flash.It’s getting late.We always do super Hero dives. Here’s bob in his cape.We’ve been seeing these on almost every dive. Lots of barracudas and only one shark. And that was a lousy nurse shark sleeping in a cave. I’m writing a letter to the fish union.Not really too much more to say. The picture really doesn’t do justice to the neon-y-ness of the stripes.This guy was on Newman’s Wall as we came back to the resort after being dropped off by the boat. Interesting true side note – last night at dinner the resort manager, Mitch showed us pictures of a woman who was bitten… IN THE THROAT (!) by a Moray eel. Evidently, the eel had been conditioned to expect food from divers, and the woman didn’t come across with the goods. After getting permission from the Honduran government, they went out and caught the eel and relocated it – to the kitchen. They ate it that night. I’ve been keeping my dive knife handy…We’ve dove the DC-3 wreck at least a dozen times, and I never noticed that the lavatory is still there. This is the toilet. The seat’s missing.This is a humungous anemone that lifes on the wing of the DC-3.I never noticed before, but this piece still has part of the paint job on it.I’ve got a new goal for dives. Max depth of 62 feet and 62 minutes total dive time. I started the planning for this 62/62 dive about six minutes before it ended, when I realized that if I wasted an extra minute after the safety stop, my time and depth would match. Diving is all about planning ahead. I took this just before I stood up at the beach as proof.
Day 5
I saw this guy as we were just heading out for the hash run.David decided to upgrade his napping site from the bench to the gear table in the center of the boat. This is just one of the advantages of being a group of 8 on a dive boat designed to carry 32.This reminds me – last night at dinner, we were talking to the resort manager about lionfish. He says the eradication efforts are making progress. For one thing, native species like Moray Eels, snapper and sharks are learning to eat the lionfish.We’ve been swarmed by parrotfish a number of times on this trip. They’re always fun – they look cool and they don’t really notice divers.Here you can see his landing-gear style feet. he can walk around on those, and he can walk on the tips of his pectoral fins and he can swim like a regular fish.This one was snaking his way along through the coral.This one is easier to see than most. You can also see the spines along his back.Carbonated beverages are an important part of a hash run. If you open a can underwater, holding it upside down, the contents will not mix with the water. Then you can put a straw into the opening in the can and drink it. Here’s Steve C demonstrating the technique. You never saw Mr. Wizard do that!This guy made quite a stir when he showed up in the front yard this week. Actually, somebody confirmed that there were two of them. They’re fairly rare, and it’s thought that they usually live thousands of feet down. I think they look like they were put together from parts in a junk drawer.If you can get past the creepy eye, these little guys are kind of cute. I like their puffy little lips.The next in a series of crustaceans in sponges pictures.Because it’s two barrel sponges. Get it?We saw a few of these guys. They’re notoriously hard to get close to, and they take off if they notice that you’re chasing them. We were at about 50 feet when we noticed this one cruising the wall below us. I dumped my air and started drifting down in front of him. He passed under me when I got to about 80 feet, so this was as close as I got. He’s probably at around 95 feet or so.This is one of the species that has jellyfish-like stinging cells. Any part of you that touches it swells up, turns purple and feels like it got hit with a hammer. I like my lycra dive skin a lot.With Diver Dennis in the background. Somehow he got ahead of David to wind up in this picture.Tonight we did the second annual Dispensibles Underwater Hash Run. David and Calum left with a 10 minute head start and set out these markers. The rest of us followed the markers, which led to the Fantasy Island Beach Resort across the channel. After a brief stop, we left again for the second stage of the run.This particular reef had lots of barrel sponges, and a surprising number of them had critters living in them. Like a lobster, for instance.After a few markers, we figured out that it was easier to see the next marker if we turned off our dive lights, so that we could see the glow. At each turn, we would swim in different directions, turning our lights on just often enough to make sure we weren’t heading for coral or a lionfish. Whoever found the next marker would wave their light, and we’d all move out together in the new direction.I forgot to tighten down the connector on the cable that connects my camera housing to the strobe before I put it into the rinse tank on the boat. Luckily, I noticed it before I took it into the ocean. I had no way of knowing whether the water had gone into the cable, or how far. The obvious answer: ceiling fan centrifuge. I let it spin on high overnight, and in the morning everything worked fine.There was a group of blue parrotfish swimming around within a school of sergeant majors. Luckily, they got along OK together.I meant to ask Robert what this was, but never got to it. If you have a guess, put it in the comments. Who’s going to argue with you?
Day 6
We dove a site called “Mary’s Place”. It’s a crack in the wall – sort of a semi-cave that you swim through. This Queen Angelfish was hanging out right at the entrance.At dinner on Friday night, we presented CoCo View with our award for Top Dive Resort of 2016.Here you can see his red mouth.Flailing away, as usual.He’s taking a picture of a spider crab he found hiding under some coral.Bob found a way to save his energy on the pirate dive, with some help from David.Here’s a picture I took of the spider crab that Bob found.Calum can’t hide his exuberance at reaching the end.One of the tasks for the pirate dive was cleaning up the lightsticks that we used on last night’s hash run dive. Here David is using shears to cut the zip tie hilding a light stick onto a piece of rope.I hung out at the exit from Mary’s Place to take pictures of the teamIn this picture, you can see the toilet and the sink on the pedestal on the right.A Scrabble game broke out on the gazebo. Calum, Steve C and Greta are playing, and Divemaster in Training Kim is supervising.Gearing up for the pirate dive, Robert tried on Steve C’s dreadlock headgear.Another view of the gazebo we dove to across the channel.This was in French Harbor, where we cruised around during our surface interval before the pirate dive.About halfway through the crack, the exit comes into view.Me presenting the plaque to Mitch and Deb, the managers of the resortCalum grabs a power nap after playing Scrabble.In the past, we’ve ridden these back and forth to the beach houses we stayed in. This year, we were in the cabanas – close enough to walk.We were finished diving as of Friday at lunch, so that we would have a full 24 hours to purge nitrogen form our bodies before flying. Fortunately, there were still hammocks and monkey la-las available.This is the pointy end of our boat from about 25 feet below.Approaching the Prince Albert on the pirate dive.Steve C Steve C sporting his dreadlocks on the pirate dive.Getting ready for the pirate dive.Robert was our trusty guide and divemaster all week.It’s not unusual to see two or three different species of coral living together. I count at least seven in this grouping, along with some sponges.And still just as creepy looking.
