Day 3
Monday, June 7
Got a ton of sleep last night, luckily! It wasn't terribly hot for once, and the glowing eyed demon (bug) didn't show up. There was a gecko on the rafters, and I think that kept it away. Breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs, along with fresh squeezed orange juice, pineapples, and watermelon. Found out that our trip to Maya Key was posponed due to weather. Then headed to the dock for our dolphin husbandry session!
For the husbandry session, it was a modified version of our usualy anatomy session with the dolphins. Instead of sitting back and letting the trainers show us all of the parts of the dolphins (like its rostrum, fluke, and dorsal fin) the returning members actually got to help take measurements of the dolphin's lenght, and girth, and also got to take a petri dish sample as they coughed and helped practice the ultrasound behaviour for the dolphins. It was great! Then our dolphin, Bill, splashed us. Luckily we were in water clothes... After the husbandry session, we headed to our dive.
Dive 3
Wayne's Place
It was very windy today, so the waves were awful. They threw out a tagline for us to hold onto so we wouldn't float away and have to waste air and energy coming back. It was a bad dive for me. It was very cold, once again, and when we jumped in, we were right over the drop off. I really don't have an issue with the ocean if I don't think about it, but I am, by nature, a hydrophobe. When I jumped in and looked down, it was nothing but blue. I started getting pretty nervous. There was a ****-ton of jellies too. Not just comb-jellies, but real, long tentacled jellies. I looked like a fool going down because I would randomly jerk right or left to avoid them... I ended up getting stung on my ankle and ear (I know right? Ear? Wtf?). However, RR and I took up the rear again. I randomly turned around to check on her, and past her was a green sea turtle rising to take a breath. I got her attention and showed her, then tried to get someone's attention to show them, but no one looked (I found out later that Dan (Dan-Dan the Turtle man) had seen us turned around and followed our gaze to see it. It was his first turtle in two years!). As we went through a gully in the reef wall, it turned brown and murky because of sedimentary run off. Not pretty. Other than that, there was nothing terribly extraordinary regarding this dive.
Max Depth: 60
Time: 48 minutes
Diver in: A
Diver out: H
Had a lunch of stewed conch (a little to heavy before a dive). Got to rest for a little while before heading out to the second dive (and listened to music for a while before hand).
Dive 4
Fish Den
Best dive of the year by far. The water was cool and clear, and we jumped in right above the wall, so it was only 15 feet or so of water. Also, before the dive, I had a lot of fun messing with other divers around me. They'd thrown out a tagline, but instead of holding onto it and not getting swept backwards, the divers would let their hands slide down the rope, and we ended up in a huge ball at the end of it. Also, I went down with my snorkle instead of my regulator... Right from the start, it was a great species spotting dive. I saw the most gigantic donkey dung seacucumber ever. It was about three feet long, and the center had the girth of a soccer ball! I also saw another lionfish though. That's really bad. Later I saw a pea (OMFG PEA I FINALLY SAW ONE THIS YEAR), a mean-ass looking filefish, two goldentail morays (saw one, found one), a butter hamlet (which are very very rare and [according to our marine instructer] "aren't found in Roatan"), three indigo hamlets, a juvenile 3 spot damselfish, secretary blennies, a tigertail seacucumber (if you don't know what they look like, look it up on google. It's scary as hell when you don't know what it is), and THIRTY FRICKEN SQUID. One inked me. It was awesome. I'd never seen them before. Also, they were desplaying some sort of courtship where a male would approach a female and flare it's tentacles at her and then steer her away from the group a little. I saw about 3 pairs, and one male that was trying to get as many females as he could, also by scaring away other squid. Some were only 3-4 inches long, but others were about 8. They kept flashing their colors.
Max Depth: 50
Time: 58
Diver in: D
Diver out: I
Afterwards we had our coral lecture. Luckily no one fell asleep (though I did nod off with my eyes open somehow...) this time. The we had a while off and went to the snack shop. Because of the music being played near our cabin, I went to the other decks before dinner to hang out. At dinner, I managed to filch a Frangipani off of Kyle G. because it was happy hour. I said I'd "give him another one." Yeah, riiight. After lunch, we hung out more, then had highs and lows.
Low: I got stung by a jellyfish in my ear.
High: The second dive because I got to see a butter hamlet (to rub it in my counselor's face)
After highs and lows we played a card game (similar to slap jack, but more more complex) for about 2 hours. I won the second round, which was also the hardest and longest round. Then we stayed up until one talking about back home.
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