[travel blog] diving at fantasy island - roatan

well,
after we checked in to our rooms
which were a bit crowded for some of us
because the fantasy island people had overbooked the rooms
we headed over to the dive shop
this was jan 7, sunday
met robert who gave us the intro
and then went on to do some shore dives
at the gazebo near by
had a couple students with me
mikayla and jackie
and managed to get a short dive in
before the sun went down
later that evening
went for a night dive with a few of us
and found the plane wreck and the ship in the dark
we also saw an octopus out hunting and feeding on the ship
very cool
small compared to the critters we have on the west coast
but it sure moved in a really cool way
kind of ballooned out around something
and then deflated itself around whatever it was
very very neat
the next day
we headed over to our boat little dev
and met our boat captain rocky
met our divemaster daren officially the day before
there were 4 americans on the boat with us
kelly and wayne,
cathy and dave
who are from michigan
and had quite a lot of camera gear between them all
photo and video
they dove with us the week
and were really nice
the dives were tropical and warm
for the first few days
and a couple of us
were diving pretty hard core
4 or 5 dives a day
around the end of the week
the weather changed
and it actually got quite cold
i remember on the thursday
that i came out of the water shivering
the dives off the boat were nice
but started to become hard to distinguish
as most of them were diving on walls of some sort or another
the odd wreck here or there
but that didn't matter
because were diving
highlights of the boat dives
-the sardine room in the mr. bud wreck
if anyone saw the 3rd matrix movie
it was just like all the sentinels swarming around
and forming the face thingy
because once in the front hold
where all these tiny fish were swarming
they wouldn't come near me
but would swim around me
or any movement i made
very very cool
glad i was the first one down and in on that dive
-the start of the bunning
by myself
when i dropped bits and pieces of buns taken from the buffet
down on nick's head
which was shaved nice and shiny
and he couldn't figure out
why the fish kept zipping by his face
after he turned around
i was laughing so hard
water was coming in through my regs
and flooding my mask
and i lost my buoyancy control so badly
that i fell down onto the top of the reef
luckily,
i hit my inflator button
and don't think i impacted all that hard
quite a feat considering i was also trying to clear my mask
and clear my reg
one thing is for sure
as contagious as laughter is on land
it's even more so underwater
as i could see through my blurry saltwater vision
other people laughing and holding their sides
because apparently i looked really really funny
and sounded really really funny too
hehehhehee
-mary's place and calvin's crack
two very neat dives with unique geological formations and terrain
swim through city
we went back to mary's place 2 more times after the first
-jackie finally cleared her mask
and did it with such ease
it was definitely anti-climatic
-the little baby nurse shark that erin spotted
and i um, teased out of his hiding spot
...ok, he went shooting out like a rocket
but i haven't handled lil guys like that before
-the die-core challenge
a couple of us were talking one night
and i believe it was murray that mentioned
it would be possible to do 6 dives in a day
and somehow
that turned into 7
after i remembered jack doing 6 dives in a day
so it wasn't a unique accomplishment
and that went on to a minimum depth/time for each dive
50 feet and at least 52 minutes
which then went on to change to 61 minute averaged time for each dive
3 of us made it
nick, murray and myself
one of the dives was mary's place
the other calvin's crack
each of those dives were over 100 feet deep
and for quite long
we planned it very meticulously
and started the day diving at 5:30am
and finished at 11:38pm
without going into deco
at least for me and nick
we almost lost murray on the 6th dive
when he went off on a bearing
but didn't notice how deep he was going
and disappeared off into the dark depths so quickly
it wasn't even funny
i waved my light
banged it against a tank
and when the failed
grabbed a bewildered nick
and smashed my tank against his
to no avail
we had erin and mikayla on that night dive with us
so we couldn't do anything about that
and i must say
i was worried murray would tox out
as he was diving nitrox
and damn, but he go deep
anyways,
for the most part we did it safely
calculating all the surface intervals
and by the last dive
i must say
i was tired
and coming back in
i was a bit disoriented
but we did it
7 hours and 8 minutes bottom time for myself
and at least 7 hours each for nick and murray too
die-core
a kirby word created many years ago to define
die-hard, hard-core
if anything,
we set a new precedent for die-core scuba diving
and did it in a really safe way
murray and i did it on nitrox
nick did it on air
that was also the last real day of diving
as the next day we had to take it easy
to fly out the day after
the only person to match me dive for dive
was murray
and we finished the week at 32 dives
nick would have made it too
but was shorted 3 dives over 2 days
when he got really really congested
and even sudafeds didn't help
not good
but better safe than sorry eh
the last dive on the last day
was the best dive of all
i will save the telling of that for another blog
because sarah and mikayla just walked back from town
with some steaming hot tamales
will be my first since arriving here...
awesome
heheheee