January 12, 2012 – Roatan, Honduras

Bob:

Another day for scuba diving in a new place.  We have never before been to Honduras and Roatan is one of the premier dive locations in the Caribbean.  There are several resorts that are basically just set up for diving.  I had booked a dive trip with Subway Watersports based on their ratings in several internet sites.  There were a couple with good ratings, but Subway was one of the few that would come and pick me up at the cruise port.  They asked that we get to the pickup point promptly after docking and I did, but there was no van to get me.  While I was waiting, another couple came along also looking for them.  A nice person called the shop and discovered that they had sent their van to the wrong dock.  Instead they put us in a taxi and the shop paid for it when we got there.

The couple had just completed their open water training in Austin so these were to be their first salt water dives.  There were just the three of us, so the divemaster told me to stay close but I was free to do my own thing.  The boat to take us out was a small Boston Whaler, big enough for the three of us, the DM and the captain, but not for much more.  After getting geared up, the ride to the dive site was only about ten minutes.  The dives are all buoyed, so that there is no need to anchor and risk damaging the corals.

The first thing I noticed when we dropped in was the beautiful corals and scarcity of fish.  Cozumel didn’t have as much interesting coral, but way more fish.  There were a fair number of smallish fish, but nothing like we saw in Cozumel.  In neither dive did we see turtle, eel or shark.  I did see some interesting shrimp and one fairly large lobster.  The dives were without any current or surge so they were very easy and pleasant with water temperature about 80 degrees.  Lion fish have infested most of the Caribbean island reefs and Roatan is no exception.  Near the end of the second dive we came across three quite large lion fish.  Normally, the divemasters spear them to try to limit the population, but our DM had neglected to bring his spear.  He was upset, both because he left the lion fish behind, but also because they would have made a great dinner.  The picture might look upside-down.  It isn’t.  The lion fish was “hanging” on the roof of the little cave.

Maxine:

Maxine didn’t do anything except relax today.  She had a leisurely morning reading on the balcony, then did a little shopping in the collection of shops and souvenir stands at the port.  All in all a very chill day.